Jason, one of our business analysts and senior programmers, moved back to Melbourne Australia in 2000 after spending 4 years with us. I was on an Instant Messenger chat with him today and we talked about the wild bush fires in his state of Victoria. The fires started a few days ago when the temperature in Melbourne reached 47.6C (116F). He said, “It was so hot and dry, everything just exploded.”
I asked him if they effected him and his family and he said that the “closest were about an hour ago [away] – we were booked to go to a weekend away in a place call Marysville in May, but the reports say that town has been wiped out. All but 2 buildings left I hear, so not so good for the owners of that B&B.” Also one of his mates had one of the fires come as close as the mailbox. His mate’s father was in the thick of the fires and has not been heard from for a couple of days. Hopefully the father escaped and will be in touch as soon as he has a means of communication.
I was checking out Twitter and there was a tweet from Robert Scoble on how Google maps help the emergency services and the residents know the locate of the fires. The fire map (Feb 08 09 22:00 EST) looks like this:
Google maps Australian bushfires
More on the Google Victoria fire maps story is at Google Australian bushfire maps.