Apoya a TheToastReport

About The Morning Toast

I built this because I live in Paradise, California, and on November 8th, 2018, my town burned down.

Our house didn't, somehow — that's a longer story — but I spent that morning watching smoke from a parking lot trying to get my wife (a firefighter, very stubborn) to leave, refreshing every site I could think of, getting nothing useful. And then for years afterward, every time the wind picked up or a fire popped off in the county, I'd open my phone and find the same thing. Ten apps screaming at me. Three different evacuation maps that didn't agree. News sites running auto-play video. Social doing whatever social does. None of it told me what I actually wanted to know, which was just — what's it look like out there today, and is there anything I should do.

That's all this is. A calm morning briefing for California fire country.

The Morning Toast is a one-screen, county-level report you can read with coffee. Fire weather, air quality, any incidents close enough to matter, PSPS shutoffs from the utility, evacuation status, and one suggested action for the day. Sometimes that action is "clean your gutters." Sometimes it's "go enjoy your morning, it's a green one." That's the whole thing. You type your ZIP, it pulls up your county, you read for a minute, you go on with your day.

It is not a live incident map. It is not a feed. It is not trying to be the thing you stare at when something is actively happening — there are people who do that job well and you should follow them when it counts. This is the part before. The morning check-in. The neighbor across the fence going "yeah, looks alright today," with actual data behind it.

You can also sign up for a 6am email digest, which is honestly the version I wanted in the first place. Something that lands in your inbox like the weather report and tells you what kind of day it is. No app to open. No notifications buzzing all day. One quiet read with your coffee.

Where it is right now: early. The site is up, all 58 California counties are indexed, the layout is settled, sample dashboards work. Live feeds from NWS, AirNow, and Cal Fire are landing in Phase 2. If you're poking around and seeing sample numbers, that's expected and labeled on the page. I wanted to lock the tone and shape of the briefing before plugging in real data, because the whole point is that this thing reads calmly, and that's a design decision before it's a data one.

It's free, and it's not a government service. Always follow your county, Cal Fire, and your local officials when something is actually happening. This is the thing for the other 95% of mornings.