Survivor host Jeff Probst warned us before season 49 began that not unlike a classic Glenn Fry tune, the heat would indeed be on. In fact, he told Entertainment Weekly that the poor souls competing on Survivor 49 would get a “smack in the face” from the intense heat. A smack in the face!

Well, we saw that smack on this week’s episode, when multiple contestants failed in their attempt to even string a few simple words together in the form of a sentence. And on the latest episode of his On Fire podcast, Probst explained that the heat was almost unmatched in the 49-season history of the franchise.

“I don’t really recall any season other than maybe Cambodia, when we had three people go down in one challenge, that was this hot,” Probst says on the podcast. “It was stifling. It was hard to think.”