Vedant ThakkerPhoto credit: https://oaklandfiresafecouncil.org/
Vedant Thakker was 16 years old when a brush fire in the hills above his Fremont neighborhood made wildfire risk feel personal.
He is now teaching seniors at Fremont’s Age Well Center how to use the tool, according to NBC Bay Area and the Oakland Firesafe Council. The California high school student later built Red Flag Check, a free website and app that lets people enter an address and see whether they are inside a National Weather Service red flag warning zone, downwind of one, adjacent to one, or outside the current warning area. Seeing flames close to home changed that immediately. He recalled thinking that the fire was happening right there, near him, and that it felt unreal. From then on, he began paying closer attention to wildfires and to the red flag warnings issued when weather conditions raise the risk of fire.
Like many teenagers, Vedant had not paid much attention to the news before the brush fire broke out near his Fremont neighborhood.
He pointed to the 2018 Camp Fire, in which the average age of those who died was 72. For the past few years, Vedant has volunteered at the Fremont Age Well Center, where the seniors he works with have come to feel like family. As he researched wildfires, he learned how vulnerable older adults can be during disasters. That statistic helped make the seniors at the Age Well Center the natural first audience for his app.
Because wildfire danger is not limited to the exact boundary of a warning, that distinction matters. NBC Bay Area reported that he may have developed Red Flag Check largely on his own, but he did not create it for himself. Red Flag Check is available at redflag-check.info and uses live National Weather Service data. Users enter an address and receive one of four location categories: inside the warning zone, in a downwind threat area, adjacent to the warning zone, or outside the current warning area. Vedant explained, as per the reports, that people who are not directly inside a warning area may still face a major indirect threat if they are downwind of a fire. The tool is free and is intended for informational use during red flag warning events. The Oakland Firesafe Council notes that it uses publicly available weather and fire data to help residents understand their relative position during dangerous conditions. Vedant developed the app using publicly available weather and fire data, along with artificial intelligence to help him write the code.