Frequently asked questions
Last updated 28 August 2026
What is Epicenter?
Epicenter shows earthquakes, wildfires, floods and storms as they happen — where they are, how big they are, and what that size actually means. It reads the same public feeds emergency agencies publish, puts them on one map, and translates the numbers into things a person can picture.
Where does the data come from?
Public agencies, straight from their own feeds:
- Earthquakes — the U.S. Geological Survey, which catalogs quakes worldwide.
- Wildfires — the National Interagency Fire Center and CAL FIRE for named incidents, plus NASA satellite thermal detections (FIRMS) that spot heat before a fire has a name.
- Floods — the National Weather Service for U.S. warnings, and the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS, run by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre and UN OCHA) for major floods worldwide.
- Official warnings abroad — national weather agencies that publish open alert feeds, currently PAGASA (Philippines) and MetService (New Zealand), with more added as agencies open their feeds.
- Local dispatch — fire and rescue computer-aided dispatch feeds in select U.S. cities, plus verified public-safety radio where it is openly broadcast.
Epicenter is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by any of these agencies.
How fresh is it?
Earthquakes appear about a minute after the USGS publishes them. Warnings and named incidents update within minutes of the issuing agency. Satellite fire detections arrive with each satellite pass, and worldwide flood alerts refresh every half hour. Every event shows its own timestamps, so you can always see exactly how current a report is.
What does “unconfirmed — felt reports” mean?
When people near you tap “I felt shaking,” Epicenter counts those reports before any agency has published anything. Enough separate devices reporting from the same area surfaces a possible quake, clearly labeled unconfirmed — often minutes before an official catalog entry. Each report carries only a location rounded to about a kilometre and a random identifier so one phone counts once; when the agency record arrives, it takes over.
Why doesn’t the app show a fire or flood I heard about?
A few honest limits. Small fires may not have a named incident record yet, and a satellite can only see heat large enough to fill its pixel. Dispatch coverage exists in select cities, not everywhere. Outside the U.S., flood coverage highlights major events — the alerts GDACS marks significant — and official warnings appear only for countries whose agencies publish open feeds. When something is missing, it is because no source we can verify has published it, not because it was filtered for effect.
Is Epicenter an official warning service?
No. Epicenter relays and explains what agencies publish, but it is not a substitute for official emergency alerts, and hazard data can be wrong, late, or incomplete at the source. In an emergency, follow the instructions of local authorities first.
Do I need an account?
No — there is no account, no sign-up, and no name, email, or phone number. What little the app handles, and why, is in the privacy policy.
What does Premium add?
Local dispatch — fires and rescues as they are called in, custom alerts that watch what you tell them to, every map layer (drought, radar, river flow and the rest), and no ads. The free tier keeps the full hazard map, live events, and felt reporting.
Why does the free tier show ads?
A small number of them — at most one on the home screen and one at the bottom of an event page — and they are non-personalized: no tracking, no advertising identifier, no ad next to events at the most severe level. Ads never influence what the map shows. Premium removes them entirely.
What devices does it run on?
Epicenter is an iPhone app today.
Something looks wrong. How do I tell you?
Email [email protected] — a screenshot and the event's title are enough. Reports about wrong or missing hazard data get read first.