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As a kid at home reading National Geographic, Jodi Biers found an article about smoke jumpers – women who jumped out of helicopters to fight wildfires. Jodi knew that she’d found her calling. But when her firefighting crew suffers a catastrophe, Jodi’s life spun out of control and she ended up in prison, and – she thought – stripped of her firefighting role forever.

Special Guest Stephanie Foo, author of, “What My Bones Know: A memoir of Healing from Complex PTSD,” joins us in the studio to talk about interviewing people in traumatic environments.

This episode mentions suicide. Please take care while listening.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline can be reached at 988 or by visting 988Lifeline.org 

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This BONUS episode of Fire Escape is available exclusively for Wondery+ and Amazon Music subscribers. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/fire-escape now.

From one of California's most notorious juvenile detention centers, a 16-year-old girl named KD joins fire camp. There she fights wildfires side-by-side with free firefighters, dropping in from helicopters, sawing down trees, and securing ridgelines. When she's released and tries to become a professional firefighter on the outside, she faces a different reality.

Special Guest Earlonne Woods, from the podcast Ear Hustle, joins us in the studio to talk about KD’s story, and life after incarceration.

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Brittany Davies' house burned to the ground when she was a little girl. She was kept on life support for months until she miraculously awoke in the hospital. As a mom, her life came to a screeching halt when she faced losing contact with her own child.

Special guest Anna Sale, host of the podcast Death, Sex & Money joins us in the studio to talk about Brittany's story, and what happens when mothers are separated from their children. 

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The Fire Girls blast their sirens to salute Amika as she is released from prison after seven years. She has no career, no home, no money, and teenage children who have been waiting for their mom to return.

But the hardest part of regaining her freedom, would be believing that she is worthy.

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As wildland fires burn hotter and stronger across California, Amika and the incarcerated firefighters are put in extreme danger. At a massive, out of control fire, Amika must defy orders for the sake of the women on her crew.

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Amika and the Fire Girls are called to the scene of a terrible crash and need to rescue the passengers from the wreckage. Amika realizes the driver of the car is intoxicated. While saving his life, she reckons with lives lost and the harsh future awaiting the young patient. Back at the firehouse, Amika’s crew are called out to a Christmas Eve emergency.

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At the firehouse, Amika plans a drop – a secret plan to sneak forbidden cell phones to her friends still on the inside. She begins to worry she might get caught. And then she’s called to an emergency involving one of her jailers.

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Amika is thrown in the hole for forty days. Locked in a windowless cell, she can hear the women through the walls losing their sanity. To protect herself, Amika must shut down all connections with everyone she loves: her cellies, her mom, and even her kids. The world looks dark until she sees a small light that may illuminate a path to her new life when she gets a call from the firehouse.

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How did Amika Mota go from a midwife and mother of three to a prisoner inside one of the largest women's prisons on Earth?

Handcuffed to a hospital bed, awaiting trial, Amika tries to come to grips with the tragic crash that cost one man his life and took her away from her children. Inside the Chowchilla prison walls, she faces the "green cops" and the threat of solitary confinement. Outside the walls sits Firehouse Five, the home of the legendary crew of incarcerated firefighters called the Fire Girls.

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Amika Mota was a young mother, a midwife, and the daughter of a feminist icon. One night she caused a fatal crash that would separate her from her family and brand her as a criminal.

Trapped inside prison, looking for any way out, she gets the call to join an all-female crew of incarcerated firefighters. When the alarm sounds, they drive out into the community on fire trucks as heroes – pulling bodies from crash scenes, saving lives and fighting fire. Every call brings her the chance to reclaim the world she lost.  

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