08-17-2026RAPID RESPONSE

Watch Duty is expanding beyond wildfires as disasters grow more extreme

CEO John Mills is expanding the nonprofit nationwide, adding flood monitoring and trying to preserve the speed and accuracy that made its alerts indispensable.

[Photo: Watch Duty/Flickr]

It’s mid-August, and Watch Duty’s CEO, John Mills, says fire season is only going to get worse. With British Columbia under a province-wide state of emergency and Spokane reeling from the most destructive wildfire in Washington state history, Mills takes us inside the most catastrophic fire season his team has ever faced. Since the L.A. wildfires made Watch Duty a household name, the Santa Rosa, California-based nonprofit has doubled its head count and revenue—growth Mills describes as a little too........

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