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 and the effects of climate change on smaller communities and former natural resource dependent towns. Recent assignments have taken him to 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 hurricanes in Louisiana to mass shootings in Florida to a devastating earthquake in Nepal.
Siegler grew up in Missoula, Montana, and apart from a brief stint as a waiter in Sydney, Australia, has spent most of his adult life living and working in the American west, including reporting stints in Aspen, Denver, Los Angeles and Boise. He is an avid traveler and fully intends to one day boast he’s skied on all seven continents. He graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism and a minor in political science from the University of Colorado Boulder.