The purpose of this study is to examine the crisis communication work, made by Västmanland County Administrative Board, during the wildfire in Sweden 2014. Changes in technology and globalization have changed both the possibilities and the demands of how authorities operate, particularly when it comes to crisis communication. The aim is to explore the communicative and rhetoric aspects of crisis communication.

The study is based on a text and rhetorical analysis, to examine the crisis communication messages on the authority’s main web page and official Facebook site. According to Heide, Johansson and Simonsson (2012) communication theory, where focus is put on how senders and receivers interact. This theory states that communication is either view in a perspective of communication as a transferring or sharing processes. The results of this study indicates that  Västmanland County Administrative Board holds a perspective that is comparable to communication as a transferring process, according to Heide et als. (2012) theory. This is seen both on the updates on the authority’s main web page and official Facebook site. The results of the rhetorical analysis show the importance for the authorities to review its own perspective of communication. By reviewing the perspective of communication, this study shows the importance of using rhetorical strategies in crisis communications which are based on a shared understanding of the communication process.