Privacy

Last updated 19 September 2026. ValkFire is published by BonkWorks Studios LLC.

ValkFire is fire department operations software. It is bought and controlled by a fire department, and most of what it holds is that department's own operational record. This page describes what the software collects, why, who can see it, and how long it is kept.

Who controls the data The department is the owner of everything entered into its account. BonkWorks Studios LLC operates the software on the department's behalf and does not sell, rent, share or advertise against any of it — not to anyone, for any purpose, ever.

What is collected

About department members

Data	Why
Name, rank, role and permissions	To show who did what, and to control who can approve or edit records
Phone number and email	Sign-in, and the department's own roster
Emergency contact name and number	Kept by the department as part of its roster, as most departments already do on paper
Certifications and expiry dates	So the department knows what its members are qualified for and when that lapses
Profile photo, if one is added	Recognising people on a command board

Operational records

Data	Why
Incidents: call type, address, times, who responded, assignments, benchmarks, narrative	The department's incident record, and the basis of state and federal reporting
Patient counts and dispositions	Required by incident reporting. See the note below.
Truck checks, deficiencies and maintenance	Apparatus readiness and compliance dates
Pre-plans, hazards, water sources and attached documents	Information the crew needs before they arrive
Photographs taken in the app	Evidence attached to a deficiency, a pre-plan or a call
Corrections, with a reason and who made them	A permanent, auditable paper trail, so a changed record never looks like an original one

Patient information ValkFire is not a patient care record. It stores what incident reporting requires — a count of patients, a disposition, a transporting agency and destination, and an optional free-text note. It has no dedicated field for a patient's name, date of birth, address or medical history, and departments are advised not to put them in the note field. Departments subject to HIPAA should confirm their own obligations before recording anything about a patient in any system.

Location

Location is off by default and is a choice each member makes for themselves, not one the department makes for them. When a member turns it on:

It is read only while a call is open on screen and the app is in the foreground.
Nothing runs in the background. Closing the app stops it.
It is used to show that member how far they are from the call and roughly how long they are out.
A member who leaves it off loses nothing except their own distance line, and is never marked absent for it.

Addresses entered for calls and pre-plans are converted to coordinates using the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder, a free public service. Results are cached so the same address is not looked up repeatedly.

Technical data

Standard operational logging by the hosting provider: request timestamps, error reports, and the checks that confirm a request came from a genuine copy of the app. No advertising identifiers. ValkFire contains no advertising, no third-party analytics and no tracking of any kind.

Who can see it

The department. Members see their department's records; administrators see and approve everything. Departments cannot see each other's data.
Google Firebase hosts the data and provides sign-in, storage and hosted functions. Data is held in the United States.
NERIS — the National Emergency Response Information System, run by the Fire Safety Research Institute — receives incident reports when the department chooses to submit them. This replaces NFIRS, which closed on 1 February 2026. Submission is the department's decision, per report or automatically on approval, and can be switched off.
BonkWorks Studios LLC can access department data only where necessary to operate and support the software, or where the law requires it.
Nobody else. Data is never sold, rented, shared for advertising, or used to train anything.

How long it is kept

Fire department records have statutory retention periods that vary by state, and they are usually measured in years. ValkFire keeps records for as long as the department's account is active, or as long as the department's own retention policy requires — whichever is longer. A department can export everything it holds, at any time, as a spreadsheet, from within the app. When a department closes its account it can request full deletion.

Your choices

Location — off unless you turn it on, and you can turn it back off at any time.
Photographs — only ever taken when you press the camera button.
Your own record — ask a department administrator to correct or remove anything about you. Operational records that name you, such as an incident you responded to, are the department's records rather than yours, and their retention rules apply.
Getting it all out — Settings → Export all data, any time, no request needed.

Children

ValkFire is workplace software for fire department members and is not directed at children. Departments with junior or explorer members under 18 should treat those roster entries the way they treat any other personnel record they hold.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest by the hosting provider. Access is controlled by sign-in and by per-member permissions set by the department's administrators. Requests are verified as coming from a genuine copy of the app.

Changes

Material changes will be dated at the top of this page, and departments will be told directly rather than expected to notice.

Contact

BonkWorks Studios LLC — privacy@valkfire.com