Nicheloom visits: 58,094 all-time · 7,637 in the last 7 days

The opportunity tracker for new startups.

Today: 1,953 launches · Niche of the day: specialized calculation tools · See what launched today →

I built a Red Flag Warning zone-check tool for the East Bay in 48h

Get picks like this daily. Today's launch numbers, the top launches, AI and tech news, and a daily opportunity pick, straight to your inbox.

Want to reach these readers? Sponsor an issue.

Hey HN. I'm a high schooler in Fremont, CA. Tuesday morning I got a county-wide AC Alert text telling everyone in Alameda County to prepare a go-bag for an East Bay Hills Red Flag Warning that starts tonight at 11 PM. The text went to ~half a million phones.The actual NWS warning polygon only covers East Bay Hills (NWS zone CAZ515). Most people who got the text don't need a go-bag tonight. Some in the hills don't realize how close they are. So I built this tool - https://redflag-check.info/ mit licensed public github - https://github.com/vedant-f-is-ma/redflag-checkIt does a few things - tells people if they are in the flagged zone, and also provides a way to check if a buddy is in flagged zone and send them a text. Everything without installing an app.I heard back from Oakland Firesafe Council director about a gap in my understanding (and the tool). To my surprise, and through feedback, I realized that you cannot assume that only the flagged area is at risk. Adjacent areas are at risk too! Fires do not follow zone boundaries! I fixed the tool.I built this in 48 hours to close that specific gap: type your address, get a yes/no on whether the NWS polygon covers it, your Genasys evacuation zone, tonight's wind + humidity at your point, a plain-English action checklist, a per-school decision view for East Bay districts, and a one-tap iMessage buddy-check template for a hill-neighbor at 10:30 PM.

HN · launched Jun 11, 2026 · 17 upvotes (top 28%) · 0 views

Niche: incident response software · 72 launches, 2 in the last 7 days ▼ -71% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Government
  • Search & retrieval
  • B2C
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

Yes The project is a client-side or simple backend web tool that compares user coordinates against official National Weather Service GeoJSON warning polygons.

Discussion

3 comments analyzed.

Concerns raised: Fires don't respect zone boundaries; warnings need to cover adjacent areas, Uncertainty in predicting fire behavior and wind direction, Lack of awareness about what Red Flag Warnings actually mean

Feature requests: Explain what Red Flag Warning means and preparedness steps, Add address autocomplete with valid addresses

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 89 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #40 of 90 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 214 days after the earliest competitor.

The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.