Open Wildfire Sensing Lab
Utah is burning.
Now it's your turn to watch.
Uinta Watch is a community-driven, open-source field lab for low-cost wildfire sensing. Open sensor nodes, reproducible field tests, published data and failures — built by Utahns, for Utah.

Solar-powered sensor node, Utah canyon country
Utah since 2015
2025 season
2026 season
2026 season
Figures from Deseret News wildfire reporting (Aug 2026), the Utah State Forester, and federal incident reports.
The gap between smoke and response
is measured in hours.
Utah's rural wildlands are vast. Cell towers don't reach every ridge. Satellites pass overhead only a few times a day, can't see through clouds, and miss low-energy smoldering at night — the fires that grow quietly while everything else is blind.
The first person to spot smoke is often a hiker, a rancher, a neighbor. There was no systematic way to get that information into the emergency network fast enough to matter.
Uinta Watch exists to close that gap.
How to Help
Every person is a node.
Run a Sensor
Pre-assembled units work straight out of the box. Configure with a phone app, mount with solar, join the network automatically.
Learn moreBuild Your Own
Open-source designs for assemblers. We provide the instructions and parts list — beginner-friendly.
Learn moreReport What You See
When you see smoke, file a report through our app. What you see feeds the public sensor map and our research record.
Learn moreDevelop the Software
The entire platform is open source. React Native, Node.js, and firmware contributors welcome.
Learn more
The Reality
75% of Utah's wildfires
are human-caused.
Early detection means resources reach the ignition point in minutes, not hours.
The Approach
Solar-powered nodes, mesh-connected, with everything published by default.
Most sensor nodes need no internet — a few gateway nodes bridge the mesh to it. Every design, test result, and failure gets published.
Start Contributing