Bill Plaschke shares harrowing experience of survivor’s guilt

Famed Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke is the latest prominent sports media figure to share their heart-wrenching experience of the wildfires that ravaged much of the Los Angeles community last week.

But unlike so many others, Plaschke’s story isn’t one of unimaginable loss. It’s one of unimaginable grief.

“I lost nothing. I lost everything. I am lucky beyond all imagination. I am haunted beyond all reason. I am spared. Nobody is spared,” Plaschke’s most recent column begins.

Plaschke, who has been with the Times since 1987, was one of the lucky ones — at least as far as anyone can be lucky in such a devastating circumstance. Plaschke’s home was spared from the fires. But many of his neighbors’ homes were not.

His reaction to returning home — not knowing if his house was still standing — was captured by a Los Angeles Times film crew. The footage is raw. On the one hand, relief. And on the other, guilt. Why me?

“I begin crying, awash in gratitude and relief until I look around at the barren, smoldering landscape, and my heart almost instantly drops into a much deeper emotion. Guilt. I was here, but where was everybody else? Where were my neighbors? Where were my friends? Why was I still standing and they were not?” Plaschke writes.

He details that, out of the eight houses in his cul-de-sac, just four remained standing, three of which were damaged. His was the only one seemingly untouched.

“There was no reason for it. There was no logic behind it. My neighbor Phil Barela said he stayed late the previous night and doused a small fire at the back of our property line, and I’ll credit him forever for saving the structure, but this was surely much more than that.”

In 2021, Plaschke released Paradise Found: A High School Football Team’s Rise from the Ashes. The book chronicles Paradise High School’s football team just months after a wildfire destroyed their small town. Their coach, Rick Prinz, had his house survive. Plaschke reached out to Prinz to hear his thoughts.

“When we found out our home did not burn it was very emotional, we were so thankful and amazed,” Prinz said. “We also felt guilt at the loss of so many others. We did not share our joy with others and kept it to ourselves. I would try not to mention that our house survived to those who had lost so much.”

With a tragedy that has impacted so many, no one is spared — even if your property was.

Plaschke’s vulnerability in writing this column and filming the return to his house was perhaps the perfect vessel to express these feelings. It’s not something a sportswriter ever imagines doing, but sometimes it’s necessary. And in this moment, Bill Plaschke’s column undoubtedly was.