Can you help Smokespotters to raise some money?

The Helidon Hills Smokespotters is a completely volunteer community organisation.  In fact it is a network of individuals who share a common objective - have a look at the About and History tabs above for a good description of what we do and why.

The Coordinators can run up large phone bills during a fire event.  Even just identifying the location of a smoke sighting in a complex situation can coast about $20 in phone bills.  But none of the Smokespotters minds the expense involved, if it leads to a useful outcome for the community, the environment and the fire services.

However, each Smokespotter needs to be equipped with an expensive bearing compass, accurate to around 0.5 degrees, which costs over $200, and mobile smokespotters require GPS units in order to accurately identify the point from which they are taking a bearing on a smoke sighting from the roadside.

We currently have an application with the Lockyer Valley Regional Council for funds to allow us to buy more compasses and GPS units - both for outfitting some current Smokespotters, and for the additional Smokespotters we need to recruit to make the group more effective.

It would be fantastic to be able to supplement our application to the Council with your supportive comments on the contributions the group has made in the course of this bushfire event.  Those contributions range from making the first sightings and reports of the four fires which an arsonist set along Wallers Road, the first sighting and report of the lightning-caused fire in the Ergon-Long / Whipbird drive area, to the email and web updates that have been issued during these fire events.

If you are willing to help us, could you please send an email to gfclaridge[at]gmail.com with the subject line "Thanks Smokespotters" and your comments on how useful you have found the Smokespotter group's efforts.  We will compile these responses and submit them to the Council as an Appendix to our application for funds.

Thank you

Gordon and KP (Smokespotter Coordinators)
[replace the [at] in the email address with @]