Kirk Siegler
As a correspondent on NPR's national desk, Kirk Siegler covers rural life, culture and politics from his base in Boise, Idaho.
His beat explores the intersection and divisions between rural and urban America, including longer term reporting assignments that have taken him frequently to a struggling timber town in Idaho that lost two sawmills right before the election of President Trump. In 2018, after the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, Siegler spent months chronicling the diaspora of residents from Paradise, exploring the continuing questions over how – or whether – the town should rebuild in an era of worsening climate-driven wildfires.
Siegler's award winning reporting on the West's bitter land use controversies has taken listeners to the heart of anti-government standoffs in Oregon and Nevada, including a rare interview with recalcitrant rancher Cliven Bundy. He's also profiled numerous ranching and mining communities from Nebraska to New Mexico that have worked to reinvent themselves in a fast-changing global economy.
Siegler also contributes extensively to the network's breaking news coverage, from floods and hurricanes in Louisiana to deadly school shootings in Connecticut. In 2015, he was awarded an international reporting fellowship from Johns Hopkins University to report on health and development in Nepal. While en route to the country, the worst magnitude earthquake to hit the region in more than 80 years struck. The fellowship was cancelled, but Siegler was one of the first foreign journalists to arrive in Kathmandu and helped lead NPR's coverage of the immediate aftermath of the deadly quake. He also filed in-depth reports focusing on the humanitarian disaster and challenges of bringing relief to some of the Nepal's far-flung rural villages.
Before helping open the network's first ever bureau in Idaho at the studios of Boise State Public Radio in 2019, Siegler was based at the NPR West studios in Culver City, California. Prior to joining NPR in 2012, Siegler spent seven years reporting from Colorado, where he became a familiar voice to NPR listeners reporting on politics, water and the state's ski industry from Denver for NPR Member station KUNC. He got his start in political reporting covering the Montana Legislature for Montana Public Radio.
Apart from a brief stint working as a waiter in Sydney, Australia, Siegler has spent most of his adult life living in the West. He grew up in Missoula, Montana, and received a journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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Arizona is facing dramatic cuts in water deliveries from the drought-imperiled Colorado River. But many water managers there aren't that worried due to a long in the works conservation strategy.
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The U.S. Forest Service's temporary ban on controlled burning, a practice seen as key to preventing huge and devastating wildfires, has now expired — with questions remaining about future burns.
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The U.S. is spending record money suppressing wildfires that are only getting more deadly and severe with climate change. But there are signs the needle is moving toward more upfront prevention work. -
Extreme weather events made worse by climate change are hitting some of the poorest parts of the United States hard. Recovery will be extra difficult at a time of high inflation. -
Residents in rural northern California are being allowed back in to assess damage from the deadly fire. High costs for everything from gas to building supplies is making recovery daunting.
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The death toll in the McKinney Fire in northern California is now at four with authorities warning it could rise as firefighters across the baking West battle extreme heat and erratic winds.
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The pandemic was especially tough for musicians in smaller cities and towns but for one country rocker in the rural Northwest it was a welcome respite.
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Pacific Northwest tribes are pressuring President Biden to make good on his pledge to uphold treaties in Indian Country and remove four large dams on the Snake River.
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Historic floods in Yellowstone National Park raise questions about long-term government efforts to fix the nation's infrastructure and curb climate change.
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"Unprecedented" floods wash out bridges, basements, and roads, close hospital
