Wildfire, a mobile app, has taken the University of Idaho campus by storm. Students have used the app to share advice about classes, ask about events in real time and to share safety advisories in real time.
Recently, Wildfire has been used by students worried about a white van following them on campus.
But what is Wildfire and how does it work?
According to the Wildfire website, the app “keeps you informed of important events happening nearby and makes it easy to spread the word quickly when something significant happens.” Trending posts are sent out as alerts to users of the app.
Posts on Wildfire are categorized so users of the app can look for the information most pertinent to them. Examples of these categories include safety, protests, classes cancelled and chatter.
Wildfire was built by a team of UC Berkeley graduates after one of the founders was nearly mugged on campus in 2015. He made a Facebook post to warn others but soon realized this wasn’t an effective way to warn the entire campus community. The Wildfire team built the app soon afterwards to help spread similar information.
Dean of Students Blaine Eckles said Wildfire is not an official university-sanctioned app. As of now, the university is unaware of who began spreading the app within the campus community.
“It’s not anything the institution utilizes or promotes,” Eckles said. “I’m not saying it’s a bad app, but it’s not something we use.”
All official university emergency notifications are sent through campus-wide emails and VandalAlerts. Eckles said university officials will not send out university-sanctioned information through Wildfire.
Lex Miller can be reached at [email protected]