Flood & Fire Alerts France
Flood and wildfire danger levels near you, from French public services.
France publishes two colour-coded warnings that matter a great deal to the people they concern and not at all to everyone else. If your house sits by a river, Vigicrues tells you whether that river is about to visit. If it sits near a forest in the south, the Météo des forêts tells you whether tomorrow is a day to skip the barbecue. Both live on websites you only think of checking once it is too late. This app watches them for you.
Where the data comes from
- Vigicrues, the French flood-warning service, which colours every monitored river section green, yellow, orange or red.
- Météo des forêts, the wildfire-danger bulletin published every day by département during the fire season, with tomorrow’s level and the day after’s.
Both are open data: no account, no key. The national Vigicrues feed weighs about two megabytes and lists every section at once, so it is read once per cycle and shared by all your flood devices, each one picking out its own section, rather than downloaded again for every device.
Requirements
- Homey Pro running firmware 12.2.0 or newer. Local only, not available on Homey Cloud.
- An internet connection.
- The app asks for your Homey’s location, only to suggest the river sections nearest to you.
Two devices
Flood vigilance follows one river section. When you add it, the fifteen sections closest to your Homey are suggested, or you search by name.
Wildfire danger follows one département, found by name or number.
| Capability | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Vigilance level | Green, Yellow, Orange or Red. For wildfires, tomorrow’s danger |
| Level the day after tomorrow | Wildfire only |
| Vigilance alert | On from Orange upwards. For wildfires, if either day is Orange or Red |
| Last update | When the level was last read |
Add as many as you need: one section, three sections, the département where you live and the one where your holiday home is.
Widgets
- Flood vigilance, the level of the section in words and in colour, with the time since the last update.
- Wildfire danger, tomorrow’s danger in large type, the day after’s at the foot with the publication date. Out of season, the tile says so instead of showing a level.
The section or département is picked from a list, with search, and each entry shows its current level, so you can see where things stand before you choose. Backgrounds: Deep blue, Slate, Plum, Forest or Sand.
Flow cards
Deliberately few.
- When the vigilance level changes. Tokens: the new and previous levels, as a number and as a name, so a Flow can tell a rise from a fall.
- And the level is at least [Green / Yellow / Orange / Red]
- Then refresh the level
The condition is the useful one. “Is the river at least Yellow?” before opening the cellar window, “is the fire danger at least Orange?” before the garden lights run a timer next to dry grass.
Settings
| Setting | Default |
|---|---|
| Check interval, flood | 30 minutes (15 to 180) |
| Check interval, wildfire | 60 minutes (30 to 240) |
The wildfire bulletin only changes once a day, hence the longer default.
The off season is not an outage
The Météo des forêts is only published during the fire season, from June to September. Outside it, the year’s file either does not exist yet or still holds its last bulletin from the end of September.
That is easy to get wrong in both directions: take a network failure for the end of the season, or keep September’s level, alarm included, on display all winter. The app does neither. A bulletin more than 48 hours old is treated as out of season, the device says so plainly, and it forgets the old level so the first bulletin of next season is not taken for a change. A real network failure is still reported as one.
What it does not do
- France only. Mainland France and Corsica for wildfire danger, the sections Vigicrues monitors for floods. No overseas départements, and no other country.
- Not every stream. A brook that Vigicrues does not monitor has no level, and no app can invent one.
- It relays official levels. It does not forecast, and it is no substitute for the authorities’ instructions when it really matters.
Languages
English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish. Section and département names stay as the French services write them.
Reporting a problem
Post here with your Homey firmware version, the app version, the name of the river section or the département number, and the date and time you noticed the problem. For a wildfire device, say whether it was during the fire season: outside June to September, an empty level is the expected answer.
Feedback and testers welcome.
Have fun 
