The Intricacies of Hotshot Culture, with Wildfire Days author Kelly Ramsey

About this episode

Amanda Monthei interviews Kelly Ramsey about her experiences as a firefighter and the intricacies of hotshot culture.

We're bringing you two, count em TWO, episodes with women and non-binary firefighters and writers who have written books about their experiences working both in fire and on hotshot crews more specifically. The first in this short series is with author Kelly Ramsey, whose book WILDFIRE DAYS was released in June. Kelly and I spoke about some of the emotional toll of fighting fire—including the terrifying feeling of not feeling like you belong, especially in such an intense work environment—as well as the process of writing a book (including the nearly 50,000 words she wrote in her Notes app during her time in fire). A large part of our conversation centered on the many intricacies of hotshot culture that we both witnessed (and which, in some cases, left us both confounded). Many anecdotes, laughs and shared experiences ensued. This was a fun one to record and hopefully it's just as fun to listen to!

People in this episode

Host: Amanda Monthei

Guest: Kelly Ramsey

Topics covered

• hotshot culture
• wildfire
• firefighting
• women in fire
• writing
• emotional toll

Keywords

• hotshot crews
• firefighting experiences
• emotional toll
• women firefighters
• writing process

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: WILDFIRE DAYS

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