Twitter Users Tracking the Latest California Fire News
Southern Californians near San Diego are currently in the midst of a massive and (largely) out of control wildfire destroying houses and displacing many residents. When you're near such a spreading and unpredictable disaster, staying informed is about the most important thing you can do. Some posts made by users of the instant-status-update site Twitter are helping some keep ahead of the flames.According to 'Wired,' two users, Nate Ritter and Viss, are using the site to post updates about the fire's progress, ordered evacuations, police presence, and traffic problems. The two are even posting pictures online of the events happening in and around the turmoil. This is an interesting change of intent for the Twitter, which is typically host to banal updates about where someone is or what they're doing right now, updates that may or may not be interesting, but that certainly won't save your life.
Nate and Viss are using the identifier #sandiegofire for their updates, and if you're the SMS type, you can send the message "track sandiegofire" to 40404 and get updates straight to your phone.
From Wired
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
nate @ Oct 25th 2007 12:38PM
Thank you so much for spreading the word about my feed. Thousands of people (and hundreds of twitter subscribers) have now been helped by using Twitter as a tool. But it's only the beginning of citizen journalism doing a better job than mainstream. Here's some ideas on what could be done better in the wake of this disaster. I would love your thoughts on it.
nate @ Oct 25th 2007 12:45PM
Sorry, the link didn't take, here it is: http://blog.perfectspace.com/2007/10/25/how-geeks-can-help-in-disasters-san-diego-fire-2007/