Wimmera: Internet Response to the Bushfire in Victoria

Saturday the 7th Of February 2009 Temperature at 49c and a gale force wind blowing at 100kmh at about 12.45pm I received a phone call

“Chris Chris There's a fire go outside and have a look quick. Stared at Renlaw Road.”

I went out side and smoke over the back in a wheat paddock that been harvested and thought to myself that it will burn the paddock and stop and the Fire crew will have it under control as the sounds of Fire Trucks racing every where. I quickly went on to Twitter and sent a message that there is a fire in Horsham. This was the start to a very big week. View the video to see what I mean

Lynton Browns Horsham Fire Video 1/2/2009

The Renlaw Rd Fires at Horsham Victoria proved to be a lot worse than I or anyone else would have imagined with the loss of The Horsham Golf Club, 8 houses and a Fire Truck . But that was only the start and has became one of Australian worst Natural Disasters. Most parts of the State of Victoria was ablaze and the final toll still not counted but as of writing the toll was 181 and expecting 300 with the los of 1800 homes and 400,000 ha of land.

I Cannot claim to be the one but all afternoon I was gathering information on the fire and tweeting it trough twitter and Facebook. Twitter is an application where you write 140 Characters messages about what you are doing now. There was a local man from Horsham who received a message trough the internet in Malaya that Horsham is ablaze and Phone his wife to get out of the house. One of the 8 houses destroyed. This proved a very valuable asset to this person that while in Malaya was able to save his family through the use of tools like Twitter. There was a number of user of Tweeds( Twitter users) jump to the task and provided relay messages from the CFA through @CFA_updates who had a live feed from the CFA web site feeding it back to Twitter and @aniraangel who would be quick to resend any worth while information on to others. @774 Melbourne (774 ABC Melbourne) has a news feed running with current and accurate information feeding through and the world stood up and took notice that Victoria was in trouble. It very difficult to really know what the success of this was but if it saved one life then it was worth the effort. All messages carried the #Bushfires # Vicfires Hash tags to enable people to filter the feed by the tag names and keep up to date. This was a very effective tool to use in such a situation.

Also there was valuable information about how to donate. What was needed and who to contact. Links to valuable web sites such has CFA and the RED CROSS where posted at regular intervals that not only help in the fundraising efforts but also allowed people to find the correct information in a hurry. I was impressed with the quality of the post by people who some are just trying to build a following and create a social network. Any post that where not appropriate where quickly dealt with by other users and those people faded into nowhere land.

Facebook

Facebook social network raised to the event by the creation of supporter groups who for the CFA and for those who lost their lives with Samboy is back_Join Now to WIN $10,000 for the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal group attracting 101,000 members in a week. Samboy ran a competition to see who cold get the most users to a group before the 15th of February. This had nothing to do with the Bushfires but the innovative idea of Kimberley Evans thought we can do this. This extended to other states groups to offer their winning prize to the the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal

Samboy is Back - JOIN NOW TO WIN $10,000 FOR THE RED CROSS BUSHFIRE APPEAL

There is also

Zoe Caudle (John XXIII College) who started a group over 27000 members and is a good group for information on the Bushfires

In memory of those who have died in the Victoria Bush fires and lost homes.

Melissa Dower

Victorian Fires - 7/2/09 - CFA volunteers and staff are awesome!!

And Mellissa other group

Donate a "colouring book" to the kids affected by the horrific fires

I was told this morning that by Mellissa that she had collected 1000 colouring in books. She contacted 774 Melbourne to tell them she had the books and a women who's role is to help the people how where Homeless and to get schools and Kindergartens up and running again said she will take them all of Mellissa and see that they get distributed to the kids who need them.

There was many dynamics to how the internet was used during the crisis and a friend of mine Hans posted this blog today on how Google wanted to get involved and with providing information for the bush fire and how it was hampered by backward government departments.

The internet even after this amount of time is still evolving and new realisation of how it can be used is still emerging with the dynamics of Web 2 and collaborating information we have an important role to play in getting others on board this new dimension.