CA Wildfire Bot

“CA Wildfire Bot” is the byline on our automatically generated wildfire reports. It is not a person; it is a software pipeline that turns official fire-agency data into plain-language incident reports, published under human editorial oversight of its rules and outputs. This page documents exactly how it works, so readers and search engines can judge our coverage on the merits.

Where the data comes from

Every report is built from the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) WFIGS incident feeds — the same authoritative, inter-agency source used across the U.S. fire community. We read incident location, discovery time, size (acres), containment, cause, land ownership, and, where available, the mapped fire perimeter. Weather and active alerts (Red Flag Warnings, etc.) near significant fires come from the National Weather Service.

How a report is made

• We poll NIFC for California wildfires every five minutes.
• Each qualifying fire becomes one permanent article at a stable URL, keyed to the incident’s IRWIN identifier so a later rename never breaks the link or creates a duplicate.
• The report states the facts in the data — county, time, acreage, containment, cause — and links to official evacuation, weather, and agency resources. A generated map shows the location and, when NIFC has mapped one, the real perimeter.
• Not every incident is published. A newsworthiness threshold filters out negligible incidents (for example, a fraction of an acre with no name, perimeter, or containment) so coverage stays meaningful rather than exhaustive.

How updates work

A fire’s article is updated in place as NIFC revises the incident. The publicly visible “updated” time only advances on a meaningful change — a change in containment, acreage, cause, or status — not on routine no-op refreshes. Each meaningful change is added to a timestamped update log on the article.

Limits & accuracy

Automated reports can be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, or out of date, and they are not official guidance. They must not be relied upon for safety, evacuation, insurance, or property decisions. Always verify with official sources — CAL FIRE, NIFC, your local fire department and emergency-management agency, and, in an emergency, call 911. See our AI & Automation Disclosure.

Corrections & oversight

The pipeline’s rules, thresholds, and outputs are set and reviewed by the FireShield Wildfire News editorial team, led by editor Theresa Gomez. If you spot an error, see our Corrections Policy or email news@fireshieldwildfire.com. We review reports of errors and update or annotate the affected article.

Standards

Read our Editorial Standards for how we source, label, and handle breaking wildfire news, and our About page for who publishes this service.