The stories of tragedy and triumph emerging from the Victorian bushfires and North Queensland floods have dominated the newspapers, televisions and PC monitors of the nation for the last few weeks. Tales of personal loss that were viewed with empathy as the horror unfolded have now given way to consternation regarding rhetoric of organisational inaction by various governments and their agencies. The first such stories to emerge surrounded delays in the implementation of a Community Information and Warning System. This was a system, having been trialled for flooding, which could have been extended to bushfire warnings (Early bushfire alert cover-up exposed, Australian IT, 13th February 2009). But it was another of these stories that grabbed our attention as being most relevant to future solutions and involved the limitations of the Victorian Government’s capability to provide Google with access to essential data about fires on crown land. (Vic Govt limited Google's bushfire map, ZDNet Australia, 13th February 2009).