Kirk Siegler
Kirk Siegler is a national correspondent for NPR News. As a roving reporter, he covers the western U.S. with an emphasis on rural issues, water and the effects of climate change on smaller communities and former natural resource dependent towns. Recent assignments have taken him to the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona where indigenous groups are protesting mines proposed on ancestral lands that are also seen as key to the Biden administration's goals of transforming the U.S. transportation grid to electricity.
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 is also frequently deployed to national and international breaking news events, from the deadly wildfires on Maui, to hurricanes in Louisiana to mass shootings in Florida to a devastating earthquake in Nepal. In 2015, 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 disaster.
In 2022, he was awarded a fellowship from the United Nations Foundation to report on climate change which took him to the Brazilian Amazon to report on the effects of deforestation and to the tiny Caribbean island nation of Dominica which is still recovering from the deadly 2017 Hurricane Maria.
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 NPR West in Culver City, California for seven years. 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.
-
Almost all of the wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest is for export, and even before President Trump's trade war, farmers were dealing with rock bottom prices and slagging global demand. -
Many oil company executives celebrated Donald Trump's return to the White House. But now expectations of higher profits are fading amid fears of a recession. -
The Trump administration's dramatic staffing cuts at federal lands agencies like the Forest Service are causing anxiety in tinder dry New Mexico, where the wildfire threat is already severe this Spring. -
In North Dakota, many farmers are still recovering from the 2018 trade war and are now bracing for more losses as President Trump levies sweeping tariffs on everything from soybeans to pork. -
As Los Angeles begins a slow recovery from destructive and deadly wildfires, local planners are trying to strike a balance between expediting rebuilding and public safety. -
Deb Haaland, the country's first indigenous cabinet secretary, used her term at the Interior Department to make what activists say is irreversible impact in recognizing the painful history of the government's treatment Native Americans -
In a city prone to large natural disasters, L.A. firefighters are widely considered to be among the best in the business at knocking down urban wildfires. But in the extreme conditions lately, experts say little can be done even to slow these modern fires. -
As President-elect Trump promises to eliminate government agencies and regulations, one American industry — mining — is asking for more intervention. They say national economic and military security are at stake. -
Backlash against massive solar energy farms drove strong rural turnout in Nevada may have helped flip the presidential vote there to Republican for the first time since 2004. But it's not a given Trump will derail President Biden's plans for more Nevada solar. -
As the nation's first ever indigenous cabinet secretary, Deb Haaland has made it her priority to right the US government's historical wrongs in Indian Country, a monumental task that's not been without controversy. -
More than a million acres of rangeland have burned in Oregon this summer. At times the wildfires barely made headlines, but ranchers say the economic fallout will be huge. -
Montana used to vote consistently purple, but now there's only one Democrat holding statewide office, three-term U.S. Senator Jon Tester. He's not exactly embracing his party this election cycle.
