Despite the NFL Playoff getting set to kickoff and the NBA regular season hitting its stride, Bill Simmons only released one podcast last week as opposed to his usual three.
That wasn’t a coincidence, as a week that began with The Ringer founder sitting ringside for WWE Raw‘s debut on Netflix quickly turned into what he described as “the worst week since I’ve been in LA by far.”
“Not even close,” he added.
Simmons, of course, was referencing the California wildfires, which have engulfed significant portions of the Los Angeles area. As of Monday morning, the fires have affected 62 square miles, resulting in at least 24 deaths and 16 people missing, with the latter figure expected to rise, according to The Associated Press.
While Simmons, fortunately, didn’t have to endure having his house burn down, as Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick did, the Sports Guy was obviously affected by the wildfires as a Southern California resident. On Monday’s episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, which marked his first since the wildfires first spread, the show’s host reflected on the devastation week alongside co-host — and fellow Southern California resident — “Cousin” Sal Iacono.
“I can’t wrap my head around it all of these days later,” Simmons said. “We knew a lot of people from friends of friends, people my kids went to school with who lived in different parts. And — I don’t even know how to describe this to people who don’t live in California, like the wide swath of devastation. The Palisades just basically being gone. Whole parts of Malibu just being gone, Eaton, Altadena.
“It’s one of those things when you see it, when you watch it on TV and it’s happening in other areas, and it’s like, ‘man, that seems awful.’ But you don’t really fully understand it until you live there. I know LA will come back. I know everybody bounces back eventually. But man, it’s really hard to even understand how the rebuilding is gonna happen and how long it’s gonna take. You just see those wide overhead shots of these different areas and it’s just so awful. And it’s just been an awful week and it just feels like it’s not gonna get better.”
Iacono went on to note a mutual friend he and Simmons share, who is a doctor at UCLA and has been facing a potential evacuation of his hospital if the fires gets too close to it.
“I was like, ‘are you kidding me?’ What does that look like? Evacuating a whole giant hospital,” Iacono said. “My God, that’s gonna be something that’s just even more outrageous and right up there with anything else.”
While Simmons and Iacono opted to move forward with their traditional weekly podcast, it seemed clear they were doing so in an effort to provide a distraction for their listeners — and perhaps, themselves. Here’s to hoping that this week brings some much-needed protection and relief to the Los Angeles area, especially with “dangerous winds” expected to arrive late Monday.