Evaluation of climate-related disaster communication strategies’ Impact on overall community resilience in the Thomas Fire’s Preparedness, Response, and Recovery

Wildfires continue to be a high priority climate-related hazard in California including Santa Barbara, where experts estimate a 48% likelihood of a wildfire event within any year (Wood, 2022). However, disaster communication strategies and the levels to which they are implemented within local areas has substantial variation, which is caused by a lack of consistent requirements across the United States US and California in disaster management and variation in event typology. This in turn can affect the overall community resilience outcomes following climate-related disaster events. In 2017, Santa Barbara, California experienced the Thomas Fire, which was at the time the largest recorded wildfire in California history (Andone, 2018). This resulted in substantial environmental damage, economic losses for residents and businesses, and public safety implications. However, no academic data collection has occurred on the Thomas Fire to explore to what extent climate-related disaster communication strategies were used in preparedness, response, and recovery and how this affects the overall local community resilience. Therefore, this thesis’ main objective is to identify to what extent climate-related disaster communication influenced the combined community resilience outcomes of Santa Barbara’s residents to the Thomas Fire event during the preparedness, response, and recovery phases. The research approach is a case study of the Thomas Fire. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were held with a range of local experts in the disaster management and planning field. To achieve triangulation, desktop research was used through policy analysis, review of relevant websites, and newspaper articles (Appendix 1). The data analysis of this thesis found climate-related disaster communication strategies used by local agencies in the Thomas Fire case study increased overall community resilience in the County. This finding is based on the independent variable, climate-related disaster communication strategies’, indicators results showing there is potential across the disaster cycle to have overall positively affected community outcomes. In tandem, the majority of the community resilience indicators showed an increased community resilience score overall. The answer to the main research question is local agency climate-related disaster communication strategies influenced Santa Barbara’s residents by overall increased community resilience in the Thomas Fire across the preparedness, response, and recovery stages.