Why is my location not accurate?

Sometimes the location that Bushfire.io shows for your device is not where you really are.

Enable location access

After you turn on Find my Location within Bushfire.io, the location shown can be different from where you really are.

What’s likely going on

Your location can be inaccurate because of the hardware in your device, the permissions you granted, radio coverage and even the weather. Sometimes it is very inaccurate, or even on a different continent.

Typically, your device does something like this:

1. Try to get a GPS fix (most accurate).
2. If that fails, look up the known location of nearby Wi-Fi access points.
3. If that fails, find nearby cell towers that it can contact.
4. If that fails, use the device’s current IP address and the rough region that the IP address belongs to (least accurate).

If your location is very inaccurate, your device probably used method 3 or 4, because methods 1 (GPS) and 2 (Wi-Fi) were not available.

Most PCs, laptops and Macs do not have GPS hardware, so they cannot use GPS positioning.

Method 2 (Wi-Fi positioning) is typically available in cities and urban areas, but rarely works well (if at all) in rural and remote areas, because of the distances involved.

How to fix it

If your device has no GPS and your location is inaccurate, you probably cannot improve it without GPS hardware. The best option is to use a different device.

If your device has GPS and your location is inaccurate, make sure that you have granted the correct permissions for Bushfire.io to use your device’s GPS and location services. Choose the most precise location permission.