# Emergency WA — user reviews > 58 indexed App Store user reviews of Emergency WA by Department of Fire and Emergency Services, rated 4.50/5 from 2 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/emergency-wa/id6738075801/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/emergency-wa/id6738075801.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 1 · 4★ 1 · 3★ 0 · 2★ 0 · 1★ 0 ## What do users think of Emergency WA? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Real-time information - 👍 Easy to use - 💡 Customizable watch zones - 👍 Informative and vital for safety **Cons** - 🐛 Notifications issues - 🐛 Glitchy and slow to update - 🐛 Old/inaccurate maps - 🔍 Needs better notification controls **Commonly reported bugs** - Inability to add watch zones - Repeated notifications for the same incident - Authentication issues when modifying watch zones **Most requested features** - Ability to increase radius for watch zones - Option to define boundaries based on regions/LGAs - Add scale to map - Retain previous settings when opening app ## Newest reviews (14 of 58) ### 3/5 — Great App But *2026-03-28, version 1.4.1* It’s a great app but for some reason I’m unable to create an account. I met all the criteria ie 10 characters, at least 1 special character, 1 lower case letter etc etc. So I’m left being unable to utilise the app fully. ### 3/5 — Viewing. *2026-01-22, version 1.4.1* Can’t work out how to change from map to list? Bah - all sorted thank you ### 2/5 — Reasonable app *2026-01-01, version 1.4.0* I rate this app as reasonable only. The app does NOT provide an accurate address for the emergency which is disappointing. Have the address would enable people know with accuracy where this emergency actually is! Having a suburb as the J we as the alert is not useful ### 3/5 — Need relevant notifications *2025-12-22* I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I wish to only receive notifications about my area. I’ve added it to my watch list, yet I’m informed about many other areas. This leads to me not really paying attention to any warnings! The app actually looks really well thought out, but this is a key function to get right. If I’ve missed a setting I would appreciate being corrected. **Developer response:** Hi Ethan, thank you for your feedback. You will only receive notifications when you have a watch zone set up and toggled on, so it's great to hear this is working well. It seems your watch zone may cover an area larger than you'd like. To change your watch zone radius, please navigate to My hub in the app and select the watch zone you'd like to edit. Select Edit location. You can now change the watch zone radius by using the slider at the bottom of the screen. This radius can be as small as 1km or as large as 100km. If you're still receiving notifications outside your watch zone area after making these changes, please email emergencywa@dfes.wa.gov.au so we can investigate further. ### 4/5 — Log in *2025-12-15, version 1.4.0* The app is pretty good, it needs facial recognition and fingerprint recognition to make it easy when looking in ### 2/5 — Don’t rely solely on this app *2025-12-15, version 1.4.0* Great when it works, lethal when it doesn’t. ### 2/5 — Too many alarms *2025-07-19* You can create watch zones for certain suburbs to be alerted if any major warnings occur. Unfortunately the system is too indiscriminate and you get alerted very frequently to “Active Alarm” in the area without any detail about what the alarm is about. There doesn’t appears to be an obvious, well explained way to change your settings so you only get alerted to major emergencies and major incidents only and don’t get every “active alarm”. Also details about what the “active alarm” is would be useful - there is no description. If they could fix these issues it could be a good app **Developer response:** Thanks for your feedback. Emergency WA displays a live feed of incidents that DFES is responding to and includes basic information about the type and location of the hazard so you know about a fire or incident as soon as authorities do. Some buildings within Western Australia require a direct data link to a fire control station as required by the Building Code of Australia and relevant Australian Standards. When an alarm is activated, DFES firefighting crews are sent to investigate and this incident appears on Emergency WA as an Active Alarm. If an incident escalates and requires a warning it will be published on Emergency WA with specific advice to the affected community about how to stay safe. To help reduce the amount of notifications you are receiving, you can turn off Incidents within your Watch Zone. You can keep warning notifications switched on to ensure you receive notifications if an incident or hazard has escalated. We hope this improves your app experience! If you would like any further information or if we can assist you with guidance on updating your notification preferences, please contact us at emergencywa@dfes.wa.gov.au ### 2/5 — If only I knew what the alert was *2025-02-23* I keep getting alerts for where I live, but I have absolutely no idea what they are, am I in danger, is there a maniac on the rampage, a fire, what? What is the point of alerts in your area if you give no details? I can’t take a picture of the page cause you don’t allow it, but it says time reported, response, updated and reported, I mean, what am I looking at? Nothing. **Developer response:** Hello, thanks for your feedback. When you click on a notification it will take you to the incident or warning card. An incident will display basic information about the type, location of the hazard and status of the response and if an incident escalates, a warning or alert may be issued with more information and specific safety advice. You can find further information about the types of incidents, warnings and alerts you will see on Emergency WA by clicking on More Information on the home page and clicking on Map Guide and Icons. ### 3/5 — Strange notification *2025-02-17* A few days after downloading the app, it notified me I had been in a car accident. I was in a rideshare, stopped at traffic lights. It came up with a big button to call 000. Glad I didn’t accidentally press it! I’m guessing bugs like this will be fixed in time. **Developer response:** Hi DiscoDove, that sounds frightening but the Emergency WA app does not have this functionality. Apple iPhones and Watches have a crash detection feature that may have been the notification you received. ### 4/5 — Great app - just needs a bit of polish *2025-02-17, version 1.1.0* Runs smoothly, loads quickly and organises the info for each warning site easily. Love that I can jump easily through the sections for each advice zone. Pretty timely update in-line with bushfire.io for all official advice released during dunsborough fires. So easy to just tap the evac, wildlife and telephone numbers in the advice and it opens the browser/phone apps without extra effort. Can get a bit spammy with the advice updates but the app always has a little “pls note” section at the top at least it’s easy to check without getting confused about what has changed (or not). Accessibility: - if you use IOS text/UI zoom the map gets tricky to navigate because the advice pop up takes so much screen up - my oldies can’t see/understand the map navigation icons easily which hindered teaching them how to monitor bushfire advice on rural property - also takes a moment to learn that each coloured area is an ADVICE zone not where the fire necessarily is yet (caused some confusion for grandies in dunsborough about which advice they were to follow; go or stay) Would be ideal to also see features used on bushfire.io so i can finally get off that app :P - wind direction indicators - suspected hotspot indicators (from satellite imagery) - subscribe to SMS or email notifications for a fire area and/or add people to the list to get them too eg. Family (premium option) ### 4/5 — Helpful with Room to Improve *2025-02-17* It’s great that I can set multiple watch zones; it’d also be great to decide if those are locality (or LGA, if need be) based or a circle centred on a particular location. Having a circle around a costal town ends up capturing too far along the coast or not far enough inland; likewise, if I want to see all of North Coastal, I either need to include most of Stirling or much of Melville **Developer response:** Thank you for the feedback and suggestion to improve Watch Zones. We are making continuous improvements to the app and will take this feedback on board for future upgrades. ### 3/5 — Apps not so great *2025-02-14* Great for warnings and can setup for local warnings. But can no longer login anymore, comes up with “null value” also keeps coming up with an error when you click on the notifications that pop up on your phone it goes to the app with an oops page and an error. **Developer response:** We're sorry to hear you are experiencing issues with the app. We identified an issue some users were experiencing and have deployed an update to fix this issue. Please install the latest update and if you are experiencing further issues, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at emergencywa@dfes.wa.gov.au so we can help resolve the issue. ### 2/5 — Needs more *2025-02-10, version 1.0.2* Why not add main roads/travel map closures?? ### 4/5 — App should retain settings *2025-02-07, version 1.0.2* It’s quite useful but app should retain previous settings such as location, satellite map and layers when opening. Like bushfire.io does. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Incorrect alerts *2026-02-05, version 1.4.1* App consistently shows warnings and alerts 100’s of miles away from me so I find it totally useless. Alert to me used to be a way better app before this rubbish launched. I have a watch zone etc etc so your response was meaningless! ### 1/5 — Viewing. *2025-12-14, version 1.4.0* Can’t work out how to change from map to list? Bah ### 1/5 — Keep My Bushfire Plan *2025-11-28, version 1.4.0* New app is terrible, bad interface poor usability and small text. The old app enabled map guidance from linked addresses and much easier access to plan information. This app seems more like BOM nonsense and government data gathering. Will use other apps. Who has time for multiple clicks in emergencies? ### 1/5 — Blank screen *2025-10-07, version 1.3.4* Have re-downloaded & restarted phone several times and just get a blank blue screen, after the initial Home Screen ### 1/5 — Was a good app *2025-10-03, version 1.3.4* The app was great before, but somehow it did not work recently. Every time I open the app it shows a blank page, even if I delete and redownload the app again. It just happened from this week I don’t know why. ### 1/5 — Too many alerts *2025-08-19* This afternoon and evening (Monday 18th August 2025) I have been constantly spammed with warning alerts regarding a potential storm tomorrow morning. I would say, without exaggeration, I’ve had at least 12 alerts since 4pm. And they always seem to come twice about 10 seconds apart. This is not the first time this has happened either. It seems to be a consistent problem over the last few weeks with the bad Perth weather. My question is how does heavy rain and strong winds constitute an “emergency?” It’s getting to a point now where I just completely ignore the alerts. I swipe off them straight away because it’s just nonsense and a total waste of time. If it’s not fixed soon I’ll just delete the app. Edit : since the time of submitting this review (not even 12 hours later) I have recieved a further 8 alerts on my phone. This is beyond a joke. **Developer response:** Hi there, thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately on Monday 18th August, we experienced a technical issue that resulted in duplicate and excessive push notifications being sent. We understand this caused a disruption and want to confirm that the issue has since been identified and resolved. We hope now that this issue is fixed, you will continue to use and enjoy the app. Thanks again ### 1/5 — Alert sent after event *2025-08-09, version 1.3.2* What’s the point? I just received a severe weather alert and what to do to prepare, half an hour after the event. ——- Thanks for your reply. It just confirms that your app is pretty much pointless. If you cannot guarantee that you have the capability to issue warning in advance, and not after the event, it dangerous to rely on your app. ### 1/5 — Alert sent after event *2025-07-27, version 1.3.2* What’s the point? I just received a severe weather alert and what to do to prepare, half an hour after the event. ### 1/5 — Annoying fire warnings several times a day *2025-04-01, version 1.2.0* Every day I receive several high danger fire warnings for my street and yet there are never fires nearby. It likes shouting wolf. I now mainly ignore the alerts. ### 1/5 — Cyclone warning is wrong *2025-02-12, version 1.0.2* Cyclone warning is wrong BOM says we should be on yellow alert but your system we have no warning. This is so dangerous. Bring back old system. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Great app *2026-01-13, version 1.4.1* 5 stars ### 5/5 — Great app *2026-01-11, version 1.4.1* I live in regional city of WA( north of Perth) and this app was very helpful to tell us we had to leave our suburb…. Thank you To all the career and volunteer firefighters who saved numerous of suburbs on a very dangerous few days back in late November 2025.. ### 5/5 — Rural response platform *2026-01-05* Great app for those in the rural areas, that might not hear what’s app go off. The only other thing you could add, would be number of units responding, Victoria’s app has number of units and this can help with members of the public understand the size of the job. **Developer response:** Thanks for your feedback, it’s great to hear the app is meeting your needs! We are always looking at ways to improve Emergency WA and will take your ideas on board. ### 5/5 — Different KM *2025-12-15, version 1.4.0* Hi, not a huge problem but I have a 5km fire warning and in my Cousins app it gives her 1km fire warning. She wants 5km fire warning. Why is it different???? 1km isn’t enough. Thanks :) ### 5/5 — Very Handy Emergency App *2025-04-01, version 1.2.0* Great App for giving up to date alerts & warnings for the local areas ### 5/5 — Great App *2025-03-18* Great app for staying updated with incidents and warnings. I think it would be even better with Critical Alerts on iPhone, ensuring important notifications aren’t missed. It’d also help if updates included when crews arrive on scene and when the incident is closed, giving real-time clarity. These could be optional and toggled in settings. Overall, a really useful app—just a few tweaks would make it even better! **Developer response:** Hi John. When your Watch Zone is switched on, the Emergency Warning and Watch and Act notifications cannot be turned off however thank you for your suggestion regarding critical alerts. During an emergency, an Emergency Alert may also be used to warn people within a defined area. You can find out more about that Emergency Alert here: https://www.emergencyalert.gov.au/home. Incidents are updated in real time to show the response and when the incident was last updated. Once an incident is closed it is removed from Emergency WA to ensure only current information is available to users and to reduce clutter on the website. Thank you for providing your feedback, we are continually updating the app and feedback from the community is vital in improving the app. ### 5/5 — Excellent Real Time Information *2025-01-24, version 1.0.2* Brilliant app which allows you to make informed decisions to ensure your family stays safe. ### 5/5 — Well designed and informative - crucial for safety *2025-01-22, version 1.0.2* Appreciate the effort that has gone into Emergency WA. The app is super easy to use and understand, and vital in staying up to date on warnings and fires. ### 5/5 — Radius *2025-01-21* I’m liking the app in general but as a rural resident the 5km radius from my area is not enough. We need to know where fires are further out from us as they can impact very quickly due to the landscape and lack of access roads in and out of our location. It would be great to have an option to increase the radius. *EDIT: Contact from developer advised how to increase radius up to 100km by editing the slider bar. Thank you!! **Developer response:** EDIT: Glad we could assist! Hi Jacy, you can increase the radius size up to 100km. You can do this by editing your watch zone location and using the slider at the bottom of the screen to increase the size. Please contact us at emergencywa@dfes.wa.gov.au if you require further assistance. ### 5/5 — Suggestion for Improved Radius Control in Emergency WA App *2025-01-20* Hello, Firstly, thank you for developing such a helpful app—it’s a fantastic tool for staying informed about emergencies. However, I believe it could be improved by offering better control over the radius for incident notifications. Currently, the app uses a “crow flies” radius, which can unintentionally cover a much larger area than desired, often encompassing most of WA. It would be more practical to have the ability to define boundaries based on specific regions or local government areas. For instance, it would be great to select notifications limited to the City of Swan rather than creating a manual radius. As it stands, I have to extend the boundary centre well beyond Bullsbrook to ensure I receive the notifications relevant to my area, which adds unnecessary coverage. This enhancement would make the app even more user-friendly and tailored for residents seeking updates relevant to their specific location. Thank you for considering this suggestion, and I look forward to seeing future improvements! **Developer response:** Hi Lucas, thanks for your feedback. Depending on how large your watch zones are, you may want to consider making the watch zones smaller to reduce the number of notifications. You can set watch zones by suburbs or location. We are also looking at ways to allow users to set custom watch zones, so stay tuned for updates! Please contact us at emergencywa@dfes.wa.gov.au if you require further assistance, we're happy to help! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-30.*