A reminder to turn on the location on your cell phone
information released
What’s the No. 1 safety tip our experts at Chelan County Emergency Management share as wildfire season approaches?
Turn on your location on your cell phone during fire season– especially when you know there is a wildfire in your area, said Rich Magnussen, EM specialist.
“We have a couple emergency alert systems we rely on during an evacuation, and one of them is IPAWS,” Magnussen explained. “In an emergency, we can enable IPAWS to ping every cell phone in an evacuation area, sending the user in the impacted area an alert.”
You don’t have to register for IPAWS to receive a message; if you have your location turned on and you are in the impacted area, you will get the alert. It’s that simple!
If you don’t want to turn on your location during wildfire season (again, we suggest you do), register for the county’s other emergency alert system, Everbridge. Everbridge relies on people to be registered to receive its notifications via email or cell phone.
“Wildfire season is almost here,” Magnussen said. “Turn on your phone’s location so we have a better chance of reaching you during an emergency.”
