Fire Aware

Terms of Service
Legal & Operational Agreement

Terms of Service

These Terms of Service govern your use of the Fire Aware environmental platform, hardware sensor nodes, geospatial maps, and predictive fire models in British Columbia, Canada.

Effective Date: October 2026 Jurisdiction: British Columbia, Canada

1. Critical Life-Safety & Emergency Service Notice

NOT AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE DISPATCH OR 911 SUBSTITUTE

Fire Aware is an independent informational platform providing aggregated situational intelligence. It is NOT an emergency dispatch agency, does not replace calling 911, and does not replace official notifications issued by the British Columbia Wildfire Service (BCWS), Emergency Info BC, DriveBC, or municipal authorities.

If you see an active wildfire, smoke plume, or unattended blaze in British Columbia, immediately call 911 or contact the BC Wildfire Service toll-free at 1-800-663-5555 (or *5555 on cellular networks).

Official Evacuation Orders Supersede All Platform Data: You must always adhere immediately to all official Evacuation Orders, Evacuation Alerts, and area restrictions declared by provincial, regional, First Nation, or municipal emergency management bodies. Under no circumstances should you delay evacuation, remain in an evacuation zone, or enter a fire hazard area relying upon readings, absence of sensor alerts, or boundary polygons displayed on Fire Aware.

2. Agreement to Terms & Scope of Services

By accessing, browsing, or utilizing the Fire Aware website (fire-aware.app), progressive web applications, API endpoints, hardware products, or community tools, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be legally bound by these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy.

If you are accessing Fire Aware on behalf of a municipality, regional district, wildfire brigade, research organization, or corporation, you represent that you hold the legal authority to bind that entity to these Terms.

3. Geospatial, Sensor & Remote Sensing Intelligence Limitations

Fire Aware synthesizes environmental telemetry from diverse earth-observation sensors, public sector geographic databases, and distributed ground stations. You acknowledge and accept the intrinsic operational limitations of these data feeds:

  • Satellite Thermal Hotspot Latency: Data from NASA FIRMS (VIIRS at 375m pixel resolution, MODIS at 1km) and CIRA RAMMB / GOES-West depends on polar and geostationary orbit revisit intervals. Cloud cover, heavy smoke shrouds, tree canopies, and sensor saturation can obstruct fire detection. Absence of a thermal hotspot does not guarantee the absence of active ground combustion.
  • Wildfire Perimeters: BC Wildfire Service incident perimeters and fire shapes are derived from aerial infrared sweeps, manual GPS mapping, and field surveys. Because perimeter mapping occurs at discrete time intervals, mapped perimeters do not represent active, minute-by-minute fire front progression.
  • Fire Behavior Calculations: Indices including Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) components (FFMC, DMC, DC, ISI, BUI, FWI), BehavePlus surface rate of spread, and Rothermel fuel models are mathematical approximations governed by theoretical fuel moisture and wind vectors. Micro-topographical wind channeling and spot fires cannot be completely predicted by computational models.
  • Ground Sensor Readings: Community IoT nodes reporting PM2.5, AQI, CO₂, temperature, and humidity reflect localized ambient micro-climates and may experience temporary hardware calibration drift, power interruptions, or extreme heat damage.

4. Evacuation Routing, Travel & Highway Navigation

The interactive route planning and travel assessment tools calculate navigational waypoints utilizing OpenStreetMap data and the public Project OSRM engine.

ROADWAYS MAY BE RAPIDLY CLOSED BY WILDFIRE ADVANCE

Severe wildfires, downed electrical transmission lines, tactical backburn operations, fallen timber, and debris flows can render highway corridors impassable with zero advance warning. Prior to embarking on any evacuation route or highway journey, verify live provincial highway conditions at DriveBC.ca and heed all RCMP and BC Ministry of Transportation checkpoints.

Fire Aware accepts no liability for delays, detours, impassable road sections, or hazards encountered during travel guided by platform waypoints.

5. Hardware Purchases, Warranties & E-Commerce Terms

When ordering FireWatch Field Nodes, Sentinel optical stations, LoRaWAN gateways, or telemetry accessories via the Fire Aware store (checkout.html):

  • Pricing & Taxes: All transaction totals are billed in Canadian Dollars (CAD). As a British Columbia registered operation, orders delivered within BC are subject to 5% federal GST and 7% provincial PST.
  • Limited Hardware Field Warranty: Fire Aware hardware devices carry a one-year (12-month) limited warranty covering defects in materials and manufacturing. This warranty does not cover units destroyed by active wildfire flame immersion, lightning surges exceeding built-in TVS protection, physical vandalism, or immersion beyond rated IP66/IP67 enclosure thresholds.
  • Return & RMA Policy: Unopened hardware units in original packaging may be returned within 30 days of receipt for a refund minus shipping fees. Defective units will be inspected and replaced under Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA).
  • Field Deployment Safety: Buyers and installers assume sole responsibility for securing outdoor sensor installations, adhering to municipal electrical codes, and ensuring mounting poles or rooftop brackets are rated for high-wind loads.

6. Acceptable Use, Automated Scraping & API Restrictions

To protect platform availability for British Columbia communities during active wildfire emergencies, you agree not to:

  • Conduct automated scraping, denial-of-service attempts, or high-concurrency loops against platform APIs (/api/wildfires, /api/chat, /api/sensors) that disrupt emergency access.
  • Forge, tamper with, or replay spoofed sensor telemetry packets to the sensor ingest endpoint (POST /api/sensor-data).
  • Circumvent rate-limiting buckets (e.g., 30 messages/10 minutes on AI chat, Turnstile verification tokens).
  • Misrepresent Fire Aware intelligence as an official government declaration from Emergency Management and Climate Readiness (EMCR) or BC Wildfire Service.

7. Limitation of Liability & Indemnification

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW IN BRITISH COLUMBIA AND CANADA, FIRE AWARE, ITS DEVELOPERS, CONTRIBUTORS, DIRECTORS, AGENTS, AND LICENSORS SHALL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO:

  • Loss of life, bodily injury, smoke inhalation, or respiratory aggravation.
  • Destruction of residential, agricultural, forestry, or commercial real property.
  • Loss of business profits, livestock, equipment, or business interruption.
  • Inaccuracies, omissions, latency, or temporary downtime in satellite, meteorological, or sensor telemetry feeds.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Fire Aware and its team from any claims, liabilities, or losses arising from your misuse of the platform or violation of these Terms.

8. Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms of Service and any matters arising from your use of Fire Aware shall be governed exclusively by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to principles of conflicts of law.

You irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of British Columbia situated in Salmon Arm, Kelowna, or Vancouver for the adjudication of any legal proceeding or dispute.