If you're a developer looking for an AusAlert API, it doesn't exist.

AusAlert is a push notification system. It sends cell broadcast alerts to phones. That's it. There is no developer API, no public data feed, no historical archive, no test environment, and no documentation for building applications on top of it.

This puts Australia behind international practice. The US, through FEMA, has provided developer access to emergency alert data since 2012.

When building emergency-aware applications, developers need:

• A REST API to query active incidents by location, type, or severity
• Structured data in standard formats (GeoJSON, JSON, CSV, CAP-AU)
• Historical data for risk scoring, trend analysis, and reporting
• Real-time updates with reasonable polling intervals
• Free access for development and community projects
• Documentation with code examples and quickstart guides

AusAlert provides none of these. It was designed for one thing: sending alerts to phones during emergencies.

In the US, FEMA provides IPAWS-OPEN, a free developer program for emergency alert data. It has been available since 2012. Developers can:

• Access a test/development environment at no cost
• Query archived alerts through the OpenFEMA API
• Subscribe to real-time CAP feeds via the All-Hazards Information Feed
• Build applications using well-documented, standard protocols

Google Public Alerts, weather apps, and thousands of third-party tools consume FEMA data through these APIs. The open approach created an entire ecosystem around emergency data.

Australia has no equivalent. AusAlert launched without any developer access plan, and none has been announced.

EmergencyAPI fills this gap. It aggregates 28 government emergency feeds from all 8 Australian states into one REST API.

Fetch all active bushfire incidents in NSW:

curl "https://emergencyapi.com/api/v1/incidents?state=nsw&eventType=bushfire" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

Returns GeoJSON FeatureCollection with incident title, coordinates, severity, warning level, agency, and timestamps. Free API key at emergencyapi.com/signup.