LA Fire Department Twittters, Don’t You ?

So it would seem our “little secret” in the series of tubes, Twitter, has been getting a lot of mainstream press lately.  They were featured in USA Today last week and then just today I came across an article in the LA Times about the LA Fire Department’s use of Twitter and some of the city’s other Web 2.0 initiatives.

Turns out our city fire department is on the cutting edge of Web 2.0, the new wave of innovation that has moved the internet away from the static screen and helped turn it into a dynamic, world-wide community. Exhibit A for the LAFD - the Twitter feed. Every time fire trucks roll or rescue helicopters fly in the city, details of the emergency go out on Twitter.

This is pretty cool.  It is always nice to see government agencies at any level, embrace and use the tools available to us in new and innovative ways.

Adding to the department’s Web 2.0 cred: a Flickr group, a YouTube channel, a blog, Gabcast and Jaiku. Under consideration right now is a Twitter disaster feed for LA residents, not a bad idea where cataclysmic earthquakes, fires, rains and mudslides are part of the SoCal life.

We have seen web services like Twitter used in a variety of ways.  Last year while battling wildfires in and around San Diego, fire crews used Twitter to send updates and also to relay their locations.  Imagine how useful these tools can be to these agencies when combined with a phone like the iPhone and an auto updating geo coordinates of your location sent to Twitter.  As consumers we have been so impressed with the recent release of location aware applications for the iPhone.  Imagine if the power of these type applications could be harnessed to aide in emergency or disaster situations?