Wildfire FAQ
What was Wildfire?
Wildfire was a mobile app that keeps you informed of important events happening nearby and makes it easy to spread the word quickly when something significant happens. It was active from 2015 to 2021, when the Wildfire team joined Opendoor. You can read the full story here.
What happened to my Wildfire user data?
During the sunset period, we are offering a data export available here and from the app. The sunset period ends on July 11th. Afterwards, we will be deleting all user data.
How did it work?
In the Wildfire app, important, trending posts get sent out as alerts to people nearby. Some real life examples include:
- Safety: Wildfire alerted 4,000 Berkeley students within a 1-mile radius of a shooting, a minute after it happened.
- Celebrity Sightings: 11,000 students instantly found out that Kevin Durant (Golden State Warriors) was on campus.
- Protests: A protest in Raleigh broke on Wildfire before any other social media platform. Students were posting pictures, videos and discussing the event in real-time.
- Classes Cancelled: Classes at UC Davis were cancelled when students used Wildfire to spread a petition about the air quality during the wildfires in 2018.
How did this start?
The idea for Wildfire originated after one of the founders was nearly mugged outside a library on UC Berkeley’s campus in 2015. He made a Facebook post to warn students, which got hundreds of views, but quickly realized that Berkeley has thousands of students who either weren’t friends with him on social media or scrolling through their newsfeed at that moment. We realized there's currently no effective way to spread or hear real-time information with your local community. Existing social networks are limited to your network of friends and family. We built Wildfire as a much more effective way to communicate with the people right around you in real-time.
Why was it called Wildfire?
Because everytime we send out a notification it spreads like…
How can I contact the Wildfire team?
You can email us at team@getwildfire.com
Where was Wildfire featured?
