Privacy | FireWatch Europe

Last updated: 22 August 2026

What happens when you use the map

Your browser connects to FireWatch Europe to load the site and wildfire data. Like most web hosting, the server or hosting provider may keep technical logs such as IP address, requested URL, timestamp, browser details and error information for security and operation. FireWatch does not use those logs to build visitor profiles.

Place searches use FireWatch's own curated place list. The search term is sent in the request body, is not added to a shared map link, and is not stored by the application. Do not enter personal information in the search field.

Information kept in your browser

FireWatch uses browser storage for functions you can see:

whether you have read the map explanation;
your analytics choice and optional FWI/marker display preferences;
hotspot identifiers used to mark detections as new since your previous visit;
a temporary, session-only cache of wind and air-quality responses.

You can remove this information by clearing site data in your browser.

Optional location access

FireWatch asks for browser location only after you choose “Show my location”. Denying access leaves the rest of the app usable. The location is held in the open page to position the map, calculate distance and show nearby air quality; FireWatch does not save it to an account or its own database.

When wind or air quality is requested, coordinates are rounded to two decimal places—roughly kilometre-level—before being sent to Open-Meteo. The same rounding applies to weather requests for a selected hotspot.

Services your browser may contact

Esri supplies the map tiles and receives ordinary web-request information when the map loads.
UNPKG supplies the Leaflet map software and styles.
Open-Meteo receives rounded coordinates only when wind or air-quality information is requested.
Copernicus EFFIS supplies Fire Weather Index map tiles only when you enable that layer.
Google Analytics loads only after you accept analytics.

Read the providers' own information: Esri privacy statement, Open-Meteo terms and privacy, and Google privacy policy.

Optional analytics

If you accept, FireWatch loads Google Analytics to understand aggregate use such as visits, device/browser category and approximate region. Google Analytics uses first-party cookies and receives page addresses, including non-personal map and filter parameters in shared links. Search terms are deliberately excluded from those links.

Declining analytics does not limit the map. You can change your choice at any time; the consent question will appear again after the page reloads.

Questions and requests