III.

Emberly

A live California wildfire map: nearby fires, fire weather and official evacuation orders.

Work in progress
Emberly at night: California cut out of a dark map, glowing active fire markers, and a side panel listing the nearest fires and unconfirmed fire calls
Live data, 7 November 2026. The map shows California only. Glowing markers are active fires. The small ringed dots are dispatch fire calls, which are listed but never set off an alarm.

Seven live public sources, and no API keys. The server pulls each feed on its own schedule, checks every record on its own, and matches incident reports, CAL FIRE, perimeters and satellite heat into one list of fires, each with a status backed by evidence.

Alert mode on a phone: a red status pill and card for Rosemary Fire, 14 miles southwest of Grass Valley, with wind and a button to check official evacuation orders

Alert mode

A fire inside a place’s radius turns the page red and answers three things. Where it is, which way the wind blows, and where the official orders are. Replayed in Demo mode.

A fire call page for LAC-403202, logged by LA County Fire dispatch, with the size shown as Not sized yet

A fire call

LA County dispatch logged it with a placeholder size and nothing since. It’s listed and explained, not alarmed.

The Outlook tab for Santa Clarita: today rated Moderate, raised one level by a Red Flag Warning, with gusts, humidity and a smoke forecast

Outlook

Three days of fire weather from the Fosberg index, raised a level where a Red Flag Warning applies, with a modeled smoke forecast.

Emberly Lite: a plain text page listing fire weather alerts, evacuation zones and active fires sorted by distance

Lite mode

Plain HTML with no framework JavaScript. Works with scripts off and on a weak signal.

What the raw feeds don’t say

“Active” needs evidence

Most records never report containment. A fire counts as active only if it’s recent for its size, CAL FIRE lists it, or satellites see heat inside its perimeter.

Fire calls stay quiet

LA County’s dispatch files a 0.01-acre record for every wildland call and rarely touches it again. Until something backs one up, it’s a fire call, never an alarm.

California, cut to shape

The map is masked to the Census state outline. Wind, satellite heat and place search all stop at the state line.