Privacy Policy
WatchFlame is built to need as little of your data as possible. It has no user accounts and sets no advertising or tracking cookies. It uses one privacy-friendly, cookieless analytics service to count aggregate visits, described under Cookies & tracking below. This policy explains the limited data the Service does handle.
Location
If you grant your browser's location permission, your approximate coordinates are sent to our servers solely to look up local conditions (fire detections, weather, drought, vegetation) for your area. You can decline the permission and instead use a searched or saved location.
- Coordinates are used transiently to query public data providers and are cached only briefly, keyed by a rounded, reduced-precision coordinate (not by you).
- They are never tied to an account or identity (there are none), and are never sold, rented, or shared for advertising.
- Saved locations are stored only in your own browser's local storage, on your device. They are not uploaded to or stored on our servers.
Technical / log data
As with any website, our hosting providers may record standard request logs (such as IP address, timestamp, and requested URL) for security and reliability. This is transient operational data, not used to profile you, and not combined with any identity.
Third parties that receive your coordinates
To return local data, your coordinates are passed to the relevant public data providers, such as OpenWeatherMap, Open-Meteo, NASA FIRMS, NIFC, CAL FIRE, Copernicus / Sentinel-2, the U.S. Census Bureau, NCES, NLCD / EnviroAtlas, FEMA, the Overpass API for OpenStreetMap shelter data, and map tiles via MapTiler / OpenStreetMap. Their own privacy terms govern their handling of that request.
Cookies & tracking
We use no advertising cookies and no cross-site trackers. Your preferences (units, theme, saved locations) live in your browser's local storage on your device.
To understand how many people visit and which pages they use, we use Vercel Web Analytics, a privacy-friendly service built into our host. It does not use cookies and does not collect personal data. It counts aggregate visits and page views, and a visitor is identified only by a temporary hash that resets each day, so it cannot follow you across days or across other websites. For more detail, see Vercel's analytics privacy documentation.
Data retention
We keep as little as possible, for as short a time as possible:
- Coordinates are held only in a temporary cache, keyed by a rounded, reduced-precision value, and expire automatically. They are never saved to a database.
- Request logs (IP, timestamp, URL) are retained only for the short window our hosting providers keep standard logs, typically a few weeks, and are then deleted automatically.
- On-device data (saved locations, units, theme) stays in your browser until you clear it. We never receive or store it.
Your privacy rights (GDPR & CCPA)
Because the Service has no accounts and holds coordinates only transiently, keyed by a rounded, reduced-precision value rather than by you, we generally hold no information that identifies you, so most data requests have nothing for us to act on. Where applicable, you still have the rights below.
- If you are in the EU/EEA or UK (GDPR): rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection, and data portability. Our legal basis for handling the limited data above is our legitimate interest in delivering the local conditions you request and in operating the Service securely.
- If you are in California (CCPA/CPRA): rights to know, delete, and correct personal information, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We do not sell or share your personal information and never have, so there is nothing to opt out of.
- On-device data (saved locations, preferences) is under your direct control. You can erase it yourself at any time by clearing this site's data in your browser.
To make any request, email watchflame.wildfire@gmail.com.
Children
The Service is not directed to children under 13 and does not knowingly collect their data.
Changes & contact
We may update this policy as the Service evolves. Questions or requests: watchflame.wildfire@gmail.com.