Thanks to Wired for this update on twittering the fires of California:

"Twitter users Nate Ritter and Viss have been busy posting rapid-fire updates of the current wildfire situation in Southern California. Both of them are on the scene in San Diego, and they are doing an excellent job of providing information and news about evacuations, meeting points and anything important that local residents would need to know. Viss is also on Flickr and he's posting photos.

Nate and Viss are using the hashtag #sandiegofire. Twitter users can enter "track sandiegofire" in SMS or IM and receive notifications whenever a tweet goes out with that tag in it.

Here's an excellent real-world example of the usefulness of Twitter's limited scope and feature set -- Reporting breaking news quickly. They're certainly filing updates more frequently than most mainstream media outlets."

The original article is here.

Update:  The LA Times is also twittering the fires here http://twitter.com/latimesfires 

We have stumbled upon the American Red Cross's Twitter page today. It is really great that public services are taking up the use of new technologies so quickly.

There is nothing on their main web page to indicate that they are using Twitter though, we couldn't find it anyway. Maybe they need a Twitter Badge to let people know!

Are there any other public services that you know of that are using Twitter? Let us know in the comments!

UPDATE - There is more info on the service here in this blog entry .  There is two parts to the service actually.  The second part (and second twitter account) is here at twitter.com/safeandwell.  This part of the service is intended for disasters where people get lost, hurt and killed.  It will be used to locate people and families and victims can reunite or be reassured that loved ones are indeed OK.