Twitter was my Newsfeed during the Victorian Bushfires

February 11th, 2009 by Ange Recchia

Twitter was and still is my Newsfeed during the Victorian Bushfires. Saturday the 7th February, 2009 will be known as Scorched Saturday. The aftermath of the Victorian Bushfires is still being uncovered by Victoria Police, Fire Fighters and Volunteers. Street by street they comb the areas devastated by the weekend bushfires searching for bodies. The death toll is still rising and expected to reach 300 at this point in time. Victoria is my home state and my heart goes out to these fellow Victorians who have suffered.

It seems there is little else on people’s minds and Twitter has been a buzz where thousands of tweeps keep micro-blogging the efforts of help and millions of dollars raised for the victims.

Fire still burning at Steels Creek. Photo: John Woudstra

Whole communities have been wiped out and some of the victims were burned alive trying to flee in their cars. These google maps show where the fires have been focused and while they are quite a distance from where I live, the whole ordeal has been surreal to me as I have had no physical sense of this ordeal.

One of my Twitter friends @RicRaftis has set up a site where you can leave personal messages of support at Victorian Bushfires Dot Com which is proving popular. @Wonderwebby too has put up a page of resources with her Scorched Saturday story.

Other tweeters like Darren Rowse aka @Problogger and @Sitepointdotcom were putting their heads together yesterday to come up with this amazing offer where all funds raised from the sale of 5 ebooks for the price of 1 will be donated to the bushfire appeal. As a result of his tweet about the sale, this is what happened next.

He was thanking his followers for this:

I too was humbled by the response. Well done Darren and the guys at Sitepoint for this awesome offer!

Bullhunter Pledges $10,000 to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal

Wonders will never cease! This morning I learned that a very good friend and mentor of mine Sean Rasmussen has donated $10,000 to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal. I am a very proud Aussie today.

These references were all found via Twitter. It IS a very POWERFUL tool if you want to get your message out there. I know there must be countless other stories equally inspiring and please mention them in the comments. I would love to know more.

EDIT: Please note that @sitepointdotcom has put out a request – Hey RT army! Pls consider dropping the # from bushfires in the 5 for 1 relief sale RT from now on we’re flooding the tag. Thankyou for your help and support.