Terms of Use (EULA)

Last updated 30 August 2026

These terms are an agreement between you and Bairn, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company ("Bairn", "we"), and they govern your use of the Epicenter app, the epicenter.news website, and the services behind them. For the app, they are the end-user license agreement (EULA). By using any of them, you agree to these terms. You must be at least 13 years old to use Epicenter.

Not an emergency service

Epicenter is an information app, not a life-safety system. It aggregates public hazard data that can be delayed, incomplete, or wrong, and it may fail to notify you. Do not rely on it as your only source in an emergency. In a life-threatening situation, call 911 or your local emergency number, and always follow the instructions of official authorities. Nothing in the app is professional, medical, or safety advice.

Your license to use Epicenter

We grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the app on Apple-branded devices that you own or control, as the App Store rules allow. The app, the site, and everything we made in them — the design, the text, the marks, the code — belong to Bairn or its licensors. Hazard data belongs to its sources. This license is all these terms give you; it is not a sale, and it ends if these terms do.

The data

Hazard information is drawn from public agencies — including the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Interagency Fire Center, CAL FIRE, NOAA and the National Weather Service — and from other public and licensed sources, including Apple Weather, and public emergency-dispatch feeds. Epicenter is independent and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any of them. Their data is provided as-is; we do not guarantee its accuracy, completeness, or timeliness, and their availability is not within our control.

Some text is machine-generated

Short incident descriptions may be generated automatically from dispatch records. They are checked against the source record before display, but automatic text can still be wrong or incomplete. The underlying reports, not the generated sentence, are the record.

Scanner radio

Where available, the app plays live public-safety radio provided by third parties. The audio is live and unmoderated: it may be delayed, may stop without notice, and may include distressing content. It is part of the public record, not a statement by us.

Crowd reports

Reports of felt shaking are unverified reports from other people, not confirmation that an earthquake occurred. They are shown as such. By submitting a report, you confirm it is genuine, and you grant Bairn a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, aggregate, display, and share what you submitted — that license is what lets your report appear on other people's maps. Submitting false reports is a misuse of the service and may be illegal.

Advertising

The free tier shows ads served by a third party. An ad is not our endorsement: advertisers are responsible for their own products, services, and claims, and any transaction with them is between you and them. Ads never influence what hazard data Epicenter shows. Ad practices and the data involved are described in our privacy policy.

Subscriptions

Premium is an auto-renewing subscription billed through your Apple Account. It renews automatically at the end of each period unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the period ends. You manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings; payment, refunds and renewals are handled by Apple under its terms. Prices are shown in the app before purchase and may change for future periods with notice through the App Store.

Acceptable use

You agree not to misuse the service — including attempting to disrupt it, probe or breach its security, scrape or bulk-collect its data, resell or redistribute its feeds, circumvent Premium, submit false reports, misrepresent an affiliation with us, or reverse-engineer the app except as permitted by law.

Termination

You can stop using Epicenter at any time. We may suspend or end access to the service — entirely, or feature by feature — if these terms are violated or to protect the service or the people using it. The sections of these terms that by their nature should survive (ownership, disclaimers, limitations of liability, disputes) survive.

No warranty

The app is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied — including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, timely, or error-free.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law: Bairn and its members, employees, and suppliers are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any harm arising from reliance on the app or from delayed, missing, or inaccurate information; and our total liability for all claims relating to the service is capped at the greater of $50 or the amount you paid us through the app in the twelve months before the claim. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions or liability limits, so parts of the above may not apply to you; in those places, our liability is limited to the smallest extent the law allows.

Indemnification

If your misuse of the service — including a false report — causes a third party to bring a claim against Bairn, you agree to indemnify Bairn for the reasonable costs, damages, and fees arising from that claim.

Apple

These terms are between you and Bairn only — not Apple. Apple is not responsible for the app or its content and has no obligation to furnish maintenance or support for it; we are responsible for those, to the extent these terms require them. If the app fails to conform to a warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any); to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation. Bairn, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims relating to the app — including product liability, regulatory compliance, and consumer-protection claims — and for the investigation and resolution of any third-party claim that the app infringes intellectual-property rights. You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. government embargo or designated a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on any U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties. You must also comply with any third-party terms that apply to your use of the app. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Before filing a claim, you agree to try to resolve the dispute informally by writing to us at [email protected] — most disagreements are misunderstandings, and thirty days of good-faith conversation is the cheapest court there is. If that fails, disputes will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and both sides consent to their jurisdiction. Either side may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court where you live.

Changes

We may update these terms; the date above will change, and material changes will be flagged in the app or on this page. Continued use after a change means acceptance. We may also change or discontinue features.

The paperwork clauses

If part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. These terms are the entire agreement between you and Bairn about the service and supersede prior versions. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these terms; we may assign them as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

Contact

Bairn, LLC · questions: [email protected].