2021 Micro-Grant Recipient: Amanda Monthei

About Amanda:

I’m Amanda! I worked for the Forest Service on an engine, a hand crew and a hotshot crew before getting out of fire to pursue a writing/creative career in 2019. That led me to create Life With Fire Podcast in spring 2020, with a goal to explore the critical role fire plays in America’s forests, lands and communities through interviews with experts, stakeholders and practitioners. When I’m not writing or podcasting, I work as a ski patroller at Mt. Baker and as a Public Information Officer on wildfires in the summer.

Grant Category: Audio/Podcast

Impact Award: Alumni

USA Recipient

Life with Fire Podcast

Project Vision:

My goal is to take Life with Fire on the road, particularly because I haven’t done any in-person interviews since starting it during the pandemic. My plan is to travel to areas impacted by the 2020 Labor Day fires or upcoming 2021 incidents and talk to practitioners, home owners, local tribes and others who may have been impacted by the fires, and tell more fire stories from the ground through interviews with people who have lived and experienced them. I’m also particularly interested in exploring—through the podcast and through writing—how wildfires inordinately impacts certain vulnerable communities (such as LGBTQ+ or migrant communities) all across the West.

Previous Work:

Life with Fire Podcast – Episode Teaser:

Amanda is our first Alumni Impact Award recipient. Check out the project she produced from her first grant (video posted below), full article here: The Women Before Me.

Favorite thing about firefighting:

The comradery, hands down. The people who choose this job are second to none. It’s bizarre but one of the things I miss the most about fire is just sitting in the buggy driving to fires with everyone, and all the conversations and jokes and bantering that goes on back there.

More of Amanda’s work: