Kirk Siegler

Kirk Siegler grew up in a loving home outside of Missoula, Montana. As a child he enjoyed long hikes into the mountains with his parents. It was here that he developed his deep love for nature and skiing. After graduating from high school, he traveled to Boulder, Colorado to attend Colorado University.

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 landed his first reporting job in 2003 serving as Montana Public Radio's first State House bureau chief. Later he moved to Aspen, Colorado and began work at Aspen Public Radio as a reporter and later the station's news director. He covered the ski industry, immigration and an energy boom in western Colorado that at the time was one of the first major fights over fracking.

Siegler covers the western United States for NPR's national desk, a position he has held since December 2012.

Based at NPR West's studios in Culver City, California, Siegler's reporting focuses on issues including the far-reaching environmental and economic impacts of the drought in California and the West. He also covers the region's complex – and often bitter – disputes around land use. On this beat, his assignments have brought listeners to the heart of anti-government standoffs in the region, including a rare 2014 interview with recalcitrant Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy in Bundy's living room outside of Bunkerville, NV.

Among his many exploits as a reporter, Siegler has braved the front lines of wildfires while embedded with an all-Native American hot shot crew from Arizona, witnessed and reported on the aftermath of many of the most notable mass shootings the United States has suffered, skied with world-famous big mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones, traveled to remote Colombian jungles in canoe to report on the cacao industry and descended into a volcano. Siegler also contributes extensively to the NPR's breaking news coverage. His stories are regularly featured on Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

In 2015, Siegler was awarded an International Reporting Project fellowship from Johns Hopkins University to report on health and development in Nepal. While en route to the country in April, the worst magnitude earthquake to hit the region in more than 80 years struck. 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.

Prior to joining NPR, 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. Siegler's work has also won numerous Edward R. Murrow and Associated Press awards in Colorado and Montana.