February 17, 2014 10.21 am This story is over 120 months old

Lincolnshire Police and Fire & Rescue get Twitter push alerts

Emergency info: Lincolnshire Police and the Fire and Rescue service can now send to Twitter users direct alerts to their smartphones.

Lincolnshire Police and Fire and Rescue can now send Twitter users direct emergency alerts to their smartphones.

The new feature has been enabled for the police force in the last two weeks, and last Friday for the Fire and Rescue service.

The Twitter Alerts service is meant to deliver critical information from the emergency services straight to users who enabled the feature.

To subscribe to the Twitter Alerts service, go to @LincsPolice and @LincsFireRescue on the official Twitter smartphone app for iPhone or Android, and tap on the alerts icon next to the follow button.

When that account Tweets with an emergency message you receive a text message or push notification directly to your phone.

In Twitter timelines the alerts have an orange bell to stand out from other Tweets and are also marked with the hashtag #alert.

Twitter alerts on an iPhone.

Twitter alerts on an iPhone.

Dave Ramscar, Chief Fire Officer for Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, said: “In an emergency it is vital that we communicate with local residents rapidly, giving them advice that could save lives.

“We are pleased to have joined Twitter Alerts and encourage people that follow us to sign up and receive them.”

There are 95 participating UK and Ireland organisations in the Twitter Alerts service – see a list here.

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