Early Access · Android
🔥 Ember
Campfire restriction lookup for Washington State — wilderness, national forest, county, and park.
Get it right before you light.
About the app
Ember is an early Android build for Washington State outdoor enthusiasts. Get it right before you light. Before you light a fire — at a dispersed campsite, trailhead, or wilderness lake — Ember tells you the current restriction status for the exact location you're in.
Tap the map, search an address or campground, or use your GPS location. Ember cross-checks jurisdiction boundaries, current restriction orders, and permanent wilderness rules to give you a clear answer: allowed, restricted, prohibited, or verify first.
What's new in v0.5.0
Lake proximity zones on the map
Tap a point inside a lake fire-free buffer and Ember now correctly surfaces the permanent no-campfire rule — even when there's no forest-wide seasonal order in effect.
Federal restrictions take priority
The detail sheet shows every matched jurisdiction in rank order. Federal forest and wilderness restrictions now outrank county orders when determining the controlling result.
Cleaner layers panel
Fire restriction overlays are listed first. Map style controls are tucked at the bottom — easy to find, out of the way.
Android APK — direct download, no Play Store needed. Requires Android 10 or later.
Download Ember v0.5.0Getting started
📲 Install steps
- On your Android phone, go to Settings → Apps → Special app access → Install unknown apps, find your browser or file manager, and enable "Allow from this source."
- Open the download link above on your phone and save the file.
- Tap the downloaded file and follow the install prompts.
Expected warnings during install
- "Install blocked" or "Unknown app" — because it's not from the Play Store. Tap Install anyway or More details → Install anyway.
- "Allow Ember to access your location?" — tap Allow. The app needs this to look up fire restrictions where you are.
- "Google Maps requires an API key" — if you see this, let me know. It means something went wrong on my end.
🧪 What to test
- Search for a place or address and check if the right fire restriction info comes up
- Tap the campfire button to look up restrictions at your current GPS location
- Tap anywhere on the map to check a specific spot
- Try the layers button (upper-left) to see restriction zones overlaid on the map
Known limitations
- Android only for now — no iOS build yet
- Coverage is Washington State only
- Data may not reflect the most current conditions, but generally stays current — a daily routine checks known authoritative sources for updates, and a weekly pass looks for new sources
Key features
Tap anywhere on the map
Instantly resolves the fire status for any point in Washington. Tap a trailhead, campground, or backcountry lake to check before you go.
Place search
Search by address, zip code, campground name, or trail. The map zooms to context-appropriate scale automatically.
Permanent wilderness rules
Altitude-based and lake-proximity fire bans in Alpine Lakes, Henry M. Jackson, William O. Douglas, Goat Rocks, and Tatoosh wildernesses — always shown even when no seasonal order is active.
Lake fire-free zones
Toggle an overlay showing ¼–½ mile no-campfire buffers around designated lakes across USFS districts and wildernesses.
Jurisdiction layers
County, national forest, ranger district, wilderness, and other boundary layers with fire stage color-coding.
Official source links
Every result links directly to the managing agency — USFS, DNR, NPS, BLM, or county — so you can verify against the latest posted order.
Release notes
Restriction priority
- Federal and national forest restrictions now appear as the headline result when both a federal and a county or local restriction are active at the same location — previously, whichever was synced most recently could win
- Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Stage 1 restriction now correctly shows June 19 as its effective date
- Okanogan County burn restriction effective date corrected to June 15 (the official annual activation date); previously showed June 1
Data accuracy
- Effective date now shows "Now" when the exact start date isn't available from the source, rather than showing the time the data was synced — the real date fills in automatically on subsequent refreshes once it appears on the agency page
- App no longer replaces a newer bundled snapshot with an older API response on startup
Layers panel
- Map style selector (Standard / Satellite / Hybrid / Terrain) moved to the bottom of the layers panel under its own label — fire restriction overlays are now the first thing you see when you open it
Restriction card
- Card now lists all applicable restrictions beneath the main status row — secondary restrictions and active permanent rules are always visible without opening Details
- Place name now wraps to two lines at a smaller size so long jurisdiction names are never cut off
Wilderness rules
- Alpine Lakes Wilderness 5,000 ft altitude fire ban now correctly triggers when tapping high-elevation locations such as Dragontail Peak
- Fixed data pipeline that was silently discarding all wilderness permanent rules when authoritative boundary data was unavailable
UX
- GPS coordinates tap to copy to clipboard with a brief confirmation toast; a copy icon indicates the action
- Map tap animation now waits for the result card to settle before zooming, preventing the animation from being interrupted
Map and navigation
- Map selections now zoom reliably after the location result card opens
- Jurisdiction boundary lines are off by default for a cleaner map and can be enabled at the bottom of the layers panel
- Map labels and restriction overlays remain available without covering the map in status pins
Location details
- The full restriction detail sheet now scrolls correctly on Android
- Added selectable GPS coordinates that open the selected point in Google Maps
- Added elevation lookup for map taps, place searches, restriction results, and current GPS location
- Replaced the ambiguous information icon with a clearly labeled Details button
Data quality
- Removed demonstration jurisdictions and demonstration restriction records from production results
- Collapsed duplicate county, wilderness, forest, and district entries while preserving all underlying polygons for accurate restriction matching
- Changed production matching to favor jurisdiction-specific proven restrictions and avoid false-positive inherited warnings
Reliability
- Fixed Expo Go startup initialization errors affecting FormData, WebSocket, and timers on Android
- Improved Android detail-card touch handling so scrolling no longer conflicts with tap-to-dismiss behavior
New
- Added Trap Lake to Alpine Lakes Wilderness lake fire-free zone (southwest of Hope Lake, confirmed via OpenStreetMap)
- Version number now displayed in the app's layers panel
Fixes
- Removed incorrectly placed Deep Lake proximity circle that appeared near Falls Creek Trail / Ingalls Creek
- Search results now zoom to context-appropriate scale — a city zooms out; a campground or trail zooms in
- Fixed Heather Lake identity in Henry M. Jackson Wilderness rule (Chelan County lake, not the Verlot/Snohomish County lake)
- Corrected coordinates for all Stevens Pass / US-2 corridor lakes — Hope, Mig, Josephine, Swimming Deer, Susan Jane, and others were 15–25 km off
Performance
- Boundary polygons cached on load — eliminates per-frame geometry recalculation
- Viewport culling prevents off-screen polygons from rendering
- Lake proximity circles only compute when the lake overlay is enabled
- Interactive map for all of Washington State with tap-to-check fire restriction status
- Place search with Google Maps autocomplete
- Jurisdiction boundary overlays: county, national forest, ranger district, wilderness, state park, BLM, DNR, tribal
- Fire stage layers (Stage 1–3) with color-coded map overlay and legend
- Permanent wilderness fire rules: Alpine Lakes, Henry M. Jackson, William O. Douglas, Goat Rocks, Tatoosh, Mt. Baker Sensitive Lakes
- Lake fire-free zone overlay for Cle Elum RD, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, HMJ Wilderness, and others
- Altitude-based fire ban detection using GPS elevation
- Fireworks reminders with jurisdiction-specific details
- Official source links for every jurisdiction
- GPS "use my location" with automatic jurisdiction and elevation lookup