When it comes to surviving bush fire, one can never have too much information.
And in this day and age of modern technology, social media and the internet have really come into their own in regards to the Rural Fire Service and emergency services.
The “Fires Near Me” app for smart phones is really excellent and every resident in the district should have this to stay on top of the dangers.
These are some of the statistics released by the RFS following the horror week of fire:
RFS website - 6.7M views, 2.7M on Tuesday, January 8
Facebook - 27.6M impressions, 6.8M on Tuesday, January 8
Twitter - 15.5M impressions, 5.0M on Tuesday, January 8, trending globally (4th)
Fires Near Me App – Tuesday, January 8: Approximately 80,000 fire searches an hour, 12000 new downloads of the App, Number 1 free App on the Apple store
1800 BFIL - More than 10,000 callers and more than 2000 on Tuesday, January 8
Emergency Alerts - More than 40 EA issued. Largest was Monday evening, January 7 for catastrophic forecast areas with 784,000 SMS and 224,000 fixed line messages sent