diff --git a/playbooks/destroy_virt_inst.yml b/playbooks/destroy_virt_inst.yml
index 432bc6ad6b..5366c105ac 100644
--- a/playbooks/destroy_virt_inst.yml
+++ b/playbooks/destroy_virt_inst.yml
@@ -27,6 +27,11 @@
   - name: pause for 30s before doing it
     pause: seconds=30 prompt="Destroying (and lvremove for) vm now {{ target }}, abort if this is wrong"
 
+  - name: schedule 30m host downtime in nagios
+    nagios: action=downtime minutes=30 service=host host={{ inventory_hostname_short }}{{ env_suffix }}
+    delegate_to: noc01.phx2.fedoraproject.org
+    ignore_errors: true
+
   - name: destroy the vm
     virt: name={{ inventory_hostname }} command=destroy
     delegate_to: "{{ vmhost }}"