Mapbox announces an expansion of its partnership with Watch Duty, the nonprofit wildfire alert system used by millions of people across the U.S. to stay safe during wildfire emergencies. Built on the Mapbox location platform, Watch Duty has been recognized as one of TIME’s Most Influential Companies of 2025, one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025, and the winner of the 2025 Apple Design Award for Social Impact.

“We love Watch Duty’s mission and are happy to see so many others also recognizing its great contribution to the safety of those impacted by wildfires. Its success also affirms how organizations of any size — from volunteer-led nonprofits to global enterprises — can build mission-critical, scalable applications using Mapbox.”
Cherie Wong, SVP of Location Services, Mapbox

Delivering clarity when it matters most

Watch Duty provides live wildfire incident updates through a dynamic, map-based app built with Mapbox GL JS, Mapbox map tiles, and custom map styling. Watch Duty makes thousands of updates per day during wildfire season, and Mapbox ensures that this highly dynamic content is delivered with exceptional geospatial context and precision. When every second counts and precise location awareness matters, Mapbox equips Watch Duty to reach users with actionable information using maps optimized for speed, clarity, and accessibility.

“Our mission is to serve everyone, including people who might be unfamiliar with using maps, with clear and up-to-date location information during emergencies. Mapbox gives us the tools to build fast, intuitive maps that just work — even when usage spikes and the stakes are high.” 
John Mills, CEO, Watch Duty

The critical importance of clear, customized map design

Initially built with open-source tools, Watch Duty switched to Mapbox basemaps and geocoding for its superior performance and design flexibility. Mapbox excels at satisfying highly specific design requirements, even the finer details such as using the correct, locally-recognized road shield icons across different states so that users can easily recognize roads when interpreting the map and planning evacuation routes. 

“Doing things like getting the highway interstate signs right was impossible on our earliest versions built with Esri, Leaflet, and OpenStreetMap. With Mapbox, we can customize our map design however we need to. Watch Duty is all about user experience, because during a disaster, our map has to be easy to use. Mapbox is the only map provider that seems to get this.”
John Mills, CEO, Watch Duty

Mapbox also provides unmatched control over the order, styling, and visibility of map layers — giving Watch Duty the ability to preserve map legibility even while displaying numerous overlapping layers showing evacuation zones, fire perimeters, power outages, red flag weather warnings, and more. Using the Mapbox Studio map styling interface, the Watch Duty engineers can more efficiently collaborate with designers to fine-tune the basemap styling.

“The map style editor in Mapbox Studio is an incredible tool. Watch Duty has so many map layers, the overall visual clarity of our map styles is essential. Mapbox Studio allows for a lot more design exploration and ultimately a much more usable and accessible product, which are key tenets for Watch Duty.”
Dave Merritt, CTO of Watch Duty

From Maplibre to Mapbox: Performance that scales

After encountering challenges with adding features and fixing bugs when using the open source mapping software Maplibre, Watch Duty migrated to the latest version of Mapbox GL JS, using Capacitor to serve the app on both web and mobile platforms. Building with the Mapbox map renderer has improved map performance and enables easier maintenance and feature development for the Watch Duty engineers. 

“Watch Duty migrated from Maplibre GL to Mapbox GL JS because we needed a more usable, robust mapping platform. Our migration was fast, and the performance gains have been immediate.”
Dave Merritt, CTO of Watch Duty

The expanded partnership between Mapbox and Watch Duty includes ongoing collaboration to further enhance the performance and design of Watch Duty’s maps based on continued feedback from public and first responders.

Building for unpredictable demand with a predictable partner

Watch Duty experiences rapid, large-scale usage surges during wildfire events. Ensuring reliable performance during spikes is a challenge for any application and developer team, but especially critical during emergencies. The Mapbox platform provides the reliability that Watch Duty requires to be able to serve millions of requests per second.

“Free open source software alone would never be enough to do what we’re doing, at the level of demand that we serve. Having a technology partner like Mapbox means that we are able to scale with confidence and keep providing this critical service to the public.”
John Mills, CEO, Watch Duty 

The partnership ensures that Watch Duty can continue offering the best map experience to its users. It also engages the geospatial engineering expertise of Mapbox developers to rapidly resolve issues and co-develop valuable new features to support emergency response and wildfire safety.

“Watch Duty has an incredible attention to detail and they raise the bar on the life-saving assistance they provide to so many communities across the US. The Mapbox team is excited to partner with their innovative team. Mapbox product teams and engineers drive geospatial innovation for our customers every day, but it is a special honor to support an application that helps to keep so many people safe.”
Cherie Wong, SVP of Location Services, Mapbox

Watch Duty is available on the web and on iOS and Android. Learn more at watchduty.org.