Help keep WildFire-Ready free for everyone.
Free forever. No ads, no paywalls, no data sold. Run by one person in Western Canada — every dollar goes back into keeping the lights on and reaching more wildfire-exposed communities.
The promise we are not breaking
WildFire-Ready exists because public wildfire information in Canada is published by reliable agencies — but it lives on separate websites with different interfaces, and the consumer apps that try to bridge the gap usually carry advertising or sit behind a subscription. We built WildFire-Ready to close that gap without putting a tollbooth in front of life-safety information.
- Free forever. No paywall, no in-app purchase, no premium tier — ever.
- No advertising. No ad networks, no sponsored content inside the app, no affiliate links.
- No data sold. Most data never leaves your device. Nothing is sold or shared.
- Official sources only. BC Wildfire Service, Alberta Wildfire, NASA FIRMS, Environment and Climate Change Canada, DriveBC, 511 Alberta.
- Companion to 911. Not a replacement for emergency services — always confirm with the source.
Where your donation actually goes
WildFire-Ready has real running costs. We are honest about them. Here is what your gift covers — every line is a real bill.
Map tiles
Mapbox tiles render every map view in the app and the web dashboard. Billed per map load — costs scale linearly with how many people open the app during a fire event.
Servers
Railway runs the API and the background worker that polls government feeds every few minutes, computes fire-weather ranks, and dispatches push notifications.
WildFire-Ready Summaries
The plain-language summary on each fire is generated through Anthropic's Claude API. Every summary is metered. We cache aggressively, but at scale this is a real line item.
Push notifications
Firebase Cloud Messaging on Android, Apple Push Notification service on iOS, with Expo as the dispatcher. Free at low volume, paid as we scale across BC and Alberta.
App Store + Play fees
Apple Developer membership ($99 USD per year), Google Play registration, and the build infrastructure that lets us ship silent over-the-air updates without forcing a re-download.
Reliability + monitoring
Sentry for crash reports (scrubbed, no PII), uptime checks,
domain registration, and the email infrastructure that runs
team@wildfire-ready.ca.
Donate via Stripe
One-time gift, secure checkout, no recurring charges. Stripe handles the card details — WildFire-Ready never sees them.
- One-time gift — no recurring charges
- Secure Stripe-hosted checkout
- 100% of your gift stays with the project
Donations are gifts to the operator — not yet tax-deductible (non-profit incorporation in progress).
What more funding unlocks
Past keeping the lights on, additional funding directly translates to more provinces, more languages, and more layers on the map. Nothing on this list is hypothetical — these are scoped pieces of work waiting on the budget to ship them.
- Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Northwest Territories. Adjacent jurisdictions that fit the same data model. Roughly a week of integration work each.
- Indigenous-language localization. Wildfire risk in Western Canada disproportionately affects First Nations communities. Translation and review with native speakers is the right thing to do, and the right thing to fund.
- Aircraft + air-tanker tracking. Helicopter and tanker positions overlaid on the map during active suppression — a feature people repeatedly ask for.
- Hardware for evacuation reception centres. Tablets and kiosk displays so emergency social services staff can show evacuees the live map without depending on personal devices.
- Faster refresh and more redundancy. Tighter polling cadence on critical feeds, plus failover paths when an upstream goes down during a major fire event.
Other ways to help (no money required)
Donations are voluntary. None of these are.
Share the app
Send the website to one person you know who lives near wildfire country — a parent, a coworker, a friend with a cabin. That is the single biggest thing you can do.
Rate & review
A short review on the App Store or Google Play helps the app surface to others searching for wildfire information. It is free and it genuinely moves the needle on visibility.
Send feedback
Spotted a bug, a wrong source, or a confusing screen? Email team@wildfire-ready.ca. Real reports from real users shape what gets fixed first.
Tell your fire department
If you sit on a local FireSmart committee, a regional fire service, or an emergency planning team, point them at /partners. Distribution to staff and volunteers is the highest-leverage move.
Refer a partner
Insurance carrier, FireSmart program, community foundation, band office? An intro to the right person inside an organization is often worth more than a cheque.
Be a beta tester
Sign up on the homepage to test new versions before public release. Bug reports from beta testers are the reason we ship stable code in fire season.
Stay in touch
Email is the primary channel — it is the fastest way to reach a real person, and the answer comes from Jeff directly.
Follow along
Social channels are rolling out as we approach broader public launch. These slots will go live as we publish. In the meantime, the /press page tracks public milestones, and the homepage Android beta signup form will email you when there is a meaningful update.
Who is behind this
WildFire-Ready is built and maintained by Jeff Parr, a solo developer in Western Canada. There are no investors, no equity holders, and no revenue model to protect. Non-profit incorporation is in progress. Read the longer version on the about page, or the partners page for how organizations plug in.
Companion to 911
WildFire-Ready is a companion to 911 and official emergency services — not a replacement. Government feeds can be delayed, incomplete, or temporarily unavailable. In an emergency, call 911 and follow the instructions of local authorities, Alert Ready, EmergencyInfoBC, and Alberta Emergency.