Marysville A Few Months Later…

I’ve just come away from watching tonight’s ABC Four Corners program about Marysville. It was a sharp reminder that, while some of us got through February with families intact and friends safe, those in the towns worst affected weren’t quite so fortunate. For Marysville’s CFA captain, Glen Fiske, there was the double blow of watching [...]

iPhone Tweeting…

On February 7, my first real understanding of the bushfires that day came not from the internet on my home computer, but through a Twitter client on my iPhone.  That initial app actually was handy, but was eventually joined by a few more that added more functionality to the mix.  And while most of my [...]

One Last Reflection, Then Forward…

This past week saw a huge change in the bushfire situation, but not before a little moment of truth on Tuesday.  With fire weather warnings and predictions, plus the new factor of a police-initiated SMS alert the previous day, even most of the volunteers on the Twitter #bushfires hashtag were nervous. Monday night had passed [...]

TwitterTrolls…

I was so looking forward to scaling back, now that we’re closer to seeing the bushfires totally under control. Less need to help out on Twitter hashtags #bushfires and #vicfires relaying assistive information, like @cfa_updates’ advisories and incidents reports tweets. Most of the regular volunteers on the hashtag stopped last week. Some were still trying [...]

Distractions…

Hate groups were put on notice that they wouldn’t be tolerated, yesterday. The invective used by them seriously jeopardized the chances of getting a fair trial of the person accused of the Churchill fire. So, our authories definitely put such groups on notice that they would be up on contempt-of-court charges. Up till last night, [...]

Still In The Twitter Trenches…

I think everyone in the State of Victoria has prayed for rain this week, in order to see the bushfires out sooner, rather than later. But it’s one week and one day after our worst bushfires, and although there have been some gains on the fires still extant, some still flare up a bit. You [...]

What’s NOT The Focus…

Late this afternoon, a tweet came through on #bushfires mentioning the name of the person arrested for the Churchill fires. That was the one thing I didn’t retweet. There is still a court suppression order on that person’s name. And while I fully understand how Churchill residents feel, I cannot take part in mentioning the [...]

A Week After Scorched Saturday

It’s been a long, tiring week. And the situation, while slightly better, is far frrom over. It takes a toll on volunteers. On Twitter’s #bushfires and #vicfires hashtags, you can see when someone who’s been helping for the whole week is physically or emotionally exhausted. But they still keep at it, putting out information or [...]

Five Days After Scorched Saturday…

It’s been a long week, and I expect it’s been even longer for the firefighters still working to contain and put out the fires. There’s been some good news after yesterday. Sitepointdotcom eventually heard how we reacted to the unexpected amount of retweets of their own sale/appeal contribution. They graciously helped by recognizing the need [...]