Residents in the Latrobe Valley have taken to social media to vent their frustration about the affects of smoke from fires burning at the Hazelwood Mine. A number of Facebook pages about the smoke have been gaining followers and these connections are leading to action.

A Morwell resident, who wished to remain anonymous, started up a page called 'Occupy Latrobe Valley' on social media networking website Facebook two years ago.

The page has exploded with online action in the past two weeks.

"It's got pretty intense, for a long time we only had six likes on the page and suddenly it went up to a thousand likes in a couple of weeks," the creator says.

Liking a page on Facebook means that a user can see posts from that particular page.

The creator of Occupy Latrobe Valley says people have mostly been using it as a place to share their stories of how they have been affected by the smoke.

"We're getting a lot of support from the stuff we're posting, we try not to have any agenda behind it. We're hoping the community can make up their own minds," the creator says.

It seems pages like this have inspired similar action.

Nerissa Albon, who has family living in the Latrobe Valley, saw many posts on Facebook about the smoke and decided to start up a Facebook event page with Morwell local, Heather Dawes.

Their page is called 'Protest: Disaster in the Valley- Dying for Help'.

"Quite a few people have set up a committee to try and get something happening, just to represent the community because people seem to be in fear but not having anyone to represent them," says Heather Dawes.

Both Ms Albon and Dawes say they realise the anonymous nature of the networking site allows people to post misleading or incorrect information without accountability.

"I haven't seen a lot of that. Is it hard for all of us to find out, in any part of the media, what's actually right, what's in the air," says Ms Albon.

Another Facebook page was created after a community meeting about the smoke a week ago, by Estelle Landy, a Morwell resident.

The page, 'The Air That We Breathe' has over a thousand likes.

"People have just got so many questions, they're searching for answers about where to go, what to do, what anyone is doing," Ms Landy says.

She hopes the page will be used to gather people for protests to lobby government for a long term plan to deal with the affects from the smoke.

"We're talking about what can actually be done in a realistic manner," Ms Landy says.