Phil Donlon & Gabe Mann: Forged in Fire: The True Stories of America's Hotshot Wildfire Warriors

Into the Fire: Storytelling and Survival with Phil Donlon & Gabe Mann
In this week’s Team Never Quit podcast, Marcus and Melanie dive deep into the art of storytelling—both on stage and in the heat of real-life danger. Our guests are two visionary filmmakers with unique, gripping perspectives on their craft: Phil Donlon, award-winning actor, filmmaker, and theater veteran, and Gabe Mann, director and cinematographer of the groundbreaking wildfire documentary Hotshot.
Phil Donlon takes us through his journey from the blue-collar streets of Chicago to the bright lights of Hollywood. A founding member of The Gilead Theater Company and a passionate storyteller, Donlon shares his experiences acting in renowned theater productions, signing with WME, and ultimately finding creative fulfillment by writing and directing his own films. His latest project, High & Outside: A Baseball Noir, is now streaming worldwide.
On the other end of the spectrum, Gabe Mann puts us directly in the line of fire—literally. His documentary Hotshot is a heart-pounding, first-person account of elite wildfire fighters who battle the flames without water, capturing their raw courage with breathtaking cinematography. After six years running alongside these real-life heroes, Mann shares the intensity, sacrifice, and unexpected pull of wildfire that changed his life forever.
From the front lines of nature’s most destructive force, this episode is about the power of storytelling, survival, and the relentless pursuit of passion.
Tune in for a conversation that will leave you inspired, shaken, and ready to chase your own fire.

In this episode you will hear:
• There’s something about when you witness wildfire firsthand. It does something to you. The actual firefighters call it “The Firebug.” It taps into something primal in men. I caught it. (6:00)
• Most of the photojournalists who actually do this right, are former firefighters. They actually have that certification. But for the most part, the kinds of people who are reporting for the Washington Post or The New York Times – they have no clue. (7:56)
• I’m a storyteller. So however I’m doing it, whether I’m an actor, whether I’m producing something, writing it – I just want to tell good stories. (9:46)
• We wanted to make a film that played like a narrative feature. (11:15)
• They’re so distracted with the climate change narrative, which really has nothing to do with wildfires. It’s the accumulation of fuel. (12:08)
• I’m the only dude in LA who’s actually from LA. (12:37)
• When you continue to put it on something that we don’t have control over – like the weather – it’s a completely disempowering narrative. (14:04)
• A wildfire is composed of 3 things. It’s called a fire triangle. You need all 3: Drought, Fuel, Ignition. (17:02)
• People were crying over all these giant Redwoods and Sequoias that were getting burned down back in 2020. And nobody ever asked the very obvious question. These trees are 2,000 years old, but the fire cycle in that forest is once every 300 years – you get a purging wildfire – How did get to be 2,000 years old? What happened 2,000 years ago that made these trees so robust? (17:39)
• There’s some people who have this gene that compels them to serve their country. (25:32)
• If we can get some people in Washington to see this film, I think we could help make change. (27:03)
• We have agency over wildfire. We can be proactive. We could solve it tomorrow, if we know what we’re supposed to do. If we look at what a hotshot crew does – literally all they do is get rid of plants. They’re either cutting them or burning them. That’s it. They don’t use water. (28:05)
• We started the film with a question. I think doing that gives people the opportunity to engage with the art in the appropriate way, which is – they answer the question. (47:34)
• Our motto when we were making this film was “Show, don’t tell.” (52:22)
• This is what art is for. It is for explaining and getting people to feel the things that you cannot adequately convey with words.

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