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The Twitter Wildfire Watcher Who Tracks California’s Blazes

 2 years ago
source link: https://www.wired.com/story/california-fire-twitter/
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The Twitter Wildfire Watcher Who Tracks California’s Blazes

When fire ignites, the race begins to alert the state’s residents of the path of destruction. One of the leading voices lives on the other side of the world.
Back of Mike Silvester at his desk looking at two computer monitors with four phones on his desk and a scanner to his side
The man behind @CAFireScanner monitors multiple data feeds to track California wildfires and broadcast up-to-the-minute information about the blazes' activity on Twitter. He's a New Zealand native and has never been to California.Photograph: Meighan Ellis

Standing on her back porch and peering through a gap in the trees, out across a canyon, Liz Johnston can see a patch of red light. The night sky above it glows an intense orange. A few miles away, a hill is ablaze: Massive flames are engulfing a dense expanse of pines, fir, and cedar.

It’s August 16, 2021—the middle of California’s fire season. Johnston is looking out at the Caldor Fire, which over the next two months will go on to burn 221,835 acres and prompt evacuations in the resort town of South Lake Tahoe. But here, in rural El Dorado County, 40 miles east of Sacramento, she hasn’t gotten an evacuation order.


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