In this episode of Women in Wild Places, I’m joined by Amanda Monthei, a former hotshot wildland firefighter, writer, and the creator of the Life With Fire podcast, for a deep, thoughtful conversation about wildfire, creativity, and what it means to live and work inside powerful & uncontrollable landscapes.

Amanda spent multiple seasons working on fire crews and hotshotting, witnessing massive wildfires most people will never experience up close. Through years on the line, she came to understand something many of us resist: fire is never really “in control,” and the idea that humans can fully control it is largely a myth.

We talk about what it’s actually like to live in survival mode all summer, the nervous-system crash that comes in the off season, and the emotional and psychological toll of increasingly long, intense fire seasons. Amanda shares what it means to see communities burn, to work inside catastrophe, and to carry that weight long after the season ends.

We also explore her transition from firefighter to storyteller, and her current chapter pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Montana and returning to craft, attention, and creative practice as a way of making sense of the world. We talk about writing, observation, landscape, and how learning to really see the places we live changes how we tell stories.

This episode is about hotshotting, the creative process, and how living with uncontrollable forces shapes the way we pay attention, write, and understand our place in the world. It’s also about humility, limits, fire ecology, and what wildfire teaches us about being human in a changing climate.

Connect with Amanda

• Listen to her podcast: Life With Fire
• Follow her on Instagram: @a_monthei
• Check out her website and Substack

Connect with Women in Wild Places

• Follow us on Instagram: @womeninwildplaces @outsidegabs
• Join our Substack
• Subscribe to our Patreon

If you loved this episode, please consider following the show, leaving a rating or review, and sharing it with someone who loves wild places, good stories, and thoughtful conversations about the world we live in.

Note: Toward the end of the episode, Amanda accidentally say “prescribed fire councils” when she meant to say “prescribed burn associations.”