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How Rams are navigating Los Angeles-area wildfires, Wild Card game vs. Vikings moving to Arizona

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif. –The Rams are no strangers to wildfire in the greater Los Angeles area, having been through the Woolsey Fire in 2018. But as they quickly found out, this would be much different.

Trying to draw on that experience as it impacted members of the organization, team president Kevin Demoff said he was asking public officials Thursday what was different this time around with this week compared to last week. They explained that this time around, there were three fires simultaneously, whereas it was just one going on last time, even though that last wildfire was bigger.

The organization had been talking to the NFL about parallel paths from the onset of the Palisades Fire, according to Demoff, and it had told staff and players to focus on playing a game in L.A. But when the Kenneth Fire broke out near West Hills – less than five miles from the team's Woodland Hills practice facility – the organization was forced to pivot, and Monday night's Wild Card playoff game against the Vikings was moved to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

"And a lot of that had been based off of our history in 2018 with the Woolsey Fire, in a similar situation of, we knew that if we could just get the fires to calm down and get people to start to return to their homes, that having a game SoFi Stadium would be an unbelievably powerful healing experience, and way to bring our community together the same way the Monday Night Football game was," Demoff said. "And there were so many parallels that we were really focused on that."

Demoff said they were focused primarily on the two objective criteria of 1) whether the game could be played safely and 2) air quality being within the thresholds of the NFL and the NFLPA. He said the Rams felt "pretty good about both of those being on the right track," and as of yesterday, it seemed like they would be able to play a game.

However, shortly before the Kenneth Fire, the organization was having a conversation with local publicly safety officials, who began to express concern about the ability to adequately staff the game. L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone on Wednesday acknowledged there wasn't enough manpower across all the departments to combat this big of an emergency. Between that, and the forecasted weather over the weekend, they felt the best decision was to move the game.

"And not only that, but you could hear the pain and the struggle in their voices, and it was pretty clear that the right thing to do was not to play the game," Demoff said. "That was before we went to practice (on Thursday) and had players evacuated because of the Kenneth Fire and the flare-up that we could all see."

The Rams were having routine calls at that point, and Demoff said it was their recommendation – working with the NFL – that the game should be moved.

"It's just a recognition that there's some things bigger than football and and we owe this to our community to make sure that this game can be played safely and not be a distraction," Demoff said. "Heaven forbid a single home or car, or, God forbid, a human life was lost, because some asset was diverted to SoFi stadium, or that a firefighter who's been working nonstop for 10 days had to stay on the frontline to cover for a firefighter who had to go to SoFi stadium. Or, heaven forbid, a fire break out during the game, and people get an evacuation notice on their phone and have to leave. It's just not the right place to be holding the game.

"We'll do our best to try to win a game, get some help from others around us, and maybe a divisional playoff game or a conference championship can be a chance for healing for our fans."

Players and coaches were impacted by yesterday's Kenneth Fire. Head coach Sean McVay had to evacuate his home, but his wife and son were safe.

Offensive lineman and team captain Rob Havenstein's wife and children were safe, but his father, dogs and cat were still at the family's house. He was having difficulty reaching his father because there's no service near their home, so he initially went on his way there because he didn't want to leave anything to chance, before turning around after getting the call that everyone was safe.

The players jumped on a video conference last night with operations and support staff to make arrangements for family to come with. The team was scheduled to depart for Phoenix tonight.

The Rams will have about 450 people in their travel party – Demoff estimated 335 members initially, plus six dogs and two cats, with another 100 people flying out Sunday.

"I think the big thing is that it's ongoing [since] yesterday. Guys were taking care of priority number one. We were making sure that you help people," McVay said. "I think [Senior Director, Football Operations] Sophie Harlan deserves a ton of credit to be able to help people kind of redirect to different locations hotel-wise that were available based on the amount of people that are trying to get out of their house. That was priority number one. We were keeping abreast of that situation and then guys came in. Fortunately, everybody's in good shape and I think everybody's in good spirits [with] all things considered."

Games like this have helped the Rams rally the community once before. Players and coaches are hoping Monday night's game will do the same.

"It's going to be important, especially for this game, dealing with the city of LA, what they're going through right now, for us to put our best foot forward Monday night," safety Quentin Lake said. "And that's something now, it's really bigger than just a game for us now, obviously, since we're dealing with the fires and the tragic incidents that are going on. We're playing really for our community."

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