They could just build a fake ceramic bonfire and light it with a remote control. An industrial sizied version of this. That'd be safe.

Agthatbuilds said:

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I dont think there's anyway it comes back as a student led event. It might very well come back as a novelty, professionally built structure to stand around while it burns. Basically like new Kyle field. Clean, nice and sterile pumped full of fake atmosphere, relegating the student to a sideshow instead of the engine that drives the atmosphere.


It's just not the same world anymore. America, and by extension, Texas A&M, is way too litigious, way too risk adverse, way too anti-social and way too distracted for this to happen in any way similar to what it was.

Yes, there's a relatively small group that continues it off to the side, but it will never be thr campus binding experience of yesterday.

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This is exactly my take on it as well.

There is a certain segment of the fanbase that is just obsessed with nostalgia and want to restore the t.u. game to Thanksgiving. However, in order to make that work in the long run, they would probably need to have on campus bonfire the night before, in order to keep students on campus (with Wednesday being a reading day, the campus is a ghost town on the week of Thanksgiving week, with Monday and Tuesday classes being lightly attended, or not held at all). However, a third party built bonfire probably won't achieve the desired results.

Without bonfire on Wednesday, a Thursday game against t.u. would be much less attractive, and the nostalgia crowd will probably lose out to the folks who want to play the game on Saturday, and not interfere with Thanksgiving (in hopes that students will come back a day early).

I think it's interesting to consider what would have happened by now had the tragedy never occurred. I would think at some point the past 25 years that Bonfire would have had to be scaled back for safety and liability reasons (scaled back in the sense of how student run it was).

I think the reality is while there's a loud and vocal group that want to keep the purity of bonfire to the point that they'd never see it return to campus if it meant giving up student autonomy over the process … there's also 40-50k students and former students that would attend every year with no real care about how the structure was built. That's not to denigrate the view point, but I'd imagine this is ultimately what the board of regents is weighing in their decision.

And the fact that it's being discussed openly with the Texas Tribune already should give an indication of where we are at in the decision making process.

PA24 said:

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Agthatbuilds said:

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It appears it would be a contractor built stack, not student.

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I don't think that is how it is suppose to work.

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Can't the contractor "hire" the students?

Muy said:

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PA24 said:

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Agthatbuilds said:

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It appears it would be a contractor built stack, not student.

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I don't think that is how it is suppose to work.

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Can't the contractor "hire" the students?

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They couldn't get liability insurance, and therefore, it couldn't happen.

Agthatbuilds said:

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Crocker cocks, hard as rocks

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I have made my peace with the fact it will never be the same, but it still makes me sad to think about the full experience students are missing out on.

Never would I have imagined what I was capable of and how proud I was to be a part of the tradition. I am proud of the folks that keep the tradition alive off campus and think that an on-campus, contractor built version would be the final nail in the coffin for the tradition. To me, bonfire was all about cut, load, and stack. The burn was very cool, but that was the tip-of-the-iceberg.

The older I get I reflect back on how lucky I was to be a part of it, but even more, how lucky I am to escape without permanent injury or worse. If not for a few friends, and some pictures, I don't think anyone would believe that I was ever in a forth stack swing (2x6 suspended by a rope) in freezing/windy weather, riding logs into stack with bailing wire / pliers / bladder of Beam.

I know several directional A&M system schools still have on campus bonfires, but it's a 20 ft high stack of old pallets.

It will never be what it was, so we should let it stay in the past… and let the white hairs drooling over getting their "only game that matters" back stay in the past with it.

The hardliners saying "No" b/c Bonfire can't be what it once was are missing out on the huge opportunity that A&M, Bryan/ CS, and naturally the University PD can finagle from this event. It'd also make for a unique recruitment tool since it'd get television exposure once again, and through the implementation of numerous safety measures such as a fire resistant memorial 'Center Pole', insurance coverage can be obtained, especially with waivers because although such are not absolute, they're nevertheless helpful. The corporate-fueled production, complete with a DJ, can be a cash cow for a lot of folks with overall reduced risks. I say do it!!!

I mean, surely our admins and BOR won't ruin Bonfire as bad as Disney did to Star Wars, RIGHT?!!?!!!

TXAGBQ76 said:

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100% agree. The whole premise behind Bonfire is building it- a ton of folks organized and workin* towards a common goal, the feeling of accomplishment, the life long friendships and memories, etc. The burning is for the former students.

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I agree with you....but realistically, from the University's perspective...another accident would be a devastating blow from both a personal and PR perspective. We got mocked and ridiculed relentlessly on the national stage in the fallout of the 99 collapse. If even a minor accident happened again, it would be a PR nightmare.

Then there's the lawsuits.

Absolutely agree, I was validating the comment that having an outside contracting firm defeated the whole purpose of Bonfire.

P.H. Dexippus said:

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Agthatbuilds said:

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I dont think there's anyway it comes back as a student led event. It might very well come back as a novelty, professionally built structure to stand around while it burns. Basically like new Kyle field. Clean, nice and sterile pumped full of fake atmosphere, relegating the student to a sideshow instead of the engine that drives the atmosphere.


It's just not the same world anymore. America, and by extension, Texas A&M, is way too litigious, way too risk adverse, way too anti-social and way too distracted for this to happen in any way similar to what it was.

Yes, there's a relatively small group that continues it off to the side, but it will never be thr campus binding experience of yesterday.

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Not only that, but in 1999, nearly all of the student body either lived on campus or had previously lived on campus. Bonfire was a dorm and outfit-driven organization. There was the Off Campus Aggies crew, but it was a minor aspect and even those folks often had roots back to the dorms.

Today, only a fraction of students have ever lived on campus. Many of the key Bonfire dorms have been torn down and the rest have been converted to co-ed. Dorm culture - that used to be the central social building block at A&M - is all but dead.

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The student built off-campus bonfire is about to get a boost due to the teasips coming back as every year football opponents.
No doubt this is what has got the school interested in moving it back to campus.

P.H. Dexippus said:

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Ag_0112358132134 said:

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CDUB98 said:

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Hell will freeze over first.

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Not really. There's no reason they can't bring it back and just take additional precautions, which is what they should have done in the first place.

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Completely false. As someone involved with leadership Student Bonfire/Unity Project 2002, it was recognized from Day 1 that if Bonfire were to ever return to campus, it would only be a hollow shell of its former self due to the liability concerns.

It would not be student cut, student load, student stack, student lead. Which is the whole point of the endeavor. The pep rally at the end, Burn, is not what builds the comradery, leadership skills and memories. I would rather it stay off campus forever than come back just as another over-produced tradition exploited by powers that be (see our football gameday experience).

FYI- if all you care about is the Burn, you can still see it each year just a short drive from campus.

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Sorry but that says more about you and those who are well intentioned but have actually lost what Bonfire is all about. What is it about?

Bonfire was about bringing all Aggies together to share their love of Texas A&M and their burning desire to Beat the Hell Outta tu. No where in there does it say it should only be built by students. Even among the fallen were Former Students. Professors and outside contractors have also been heavily involved providing guidance and equipment in the past. The only question is how much and where the line is drawn.

I admire the work that those who have kept the tradition alive with Student Bonfire but it is at best a pale shadow of what it once was. It's more of a service project combined with a nostalgia event. I have been and honestly just walked away sad though I know many feel differently. You simply can't overstate the importance of having the school involved. That means the football team and Yell Leaders are there. It means it's on campus and you have far, far more attendance. It means the school will push it and publicize it and people will come from all over to see it.

I get it. The cool part about Bonfire is how it is student run and all the things we did when building it but that has evolved over time. I worked on Bonfire all 4 years. My Dad was in charge of Bonfire as a Yell Leader in the '50s. There is a limit to how much it can be sanitized before it loses its meaning. That said I think the current Bonfire is more about just the people who build it and it isn't about the school or the original meaning. Like I said, it's a service project (a very cool one) with a lot of nostalgia.

It just amazes me how the people who seem most resistant to Bonfire coming back on campus are those who are building it now because they will lose control of it. They have this idea of purity around it that while I do understand it as someone who did it I think also has lost the real point of Bonfire to begin with. It's about bringing all Aggies together not about the nuts and bolts of how that happens. There seems to be very little compromise with the folks doing it now, they want it to be exactly the way they are doing it or not at all. I also understand why they feel that way based around how things went down 25 years ago after the collapse be but that's the whole point, time has passed and we have a chance at a new beginning if people are willing to compromise.

Or it can just stay a small event off campus that 80-90% of current students are barely aware of and won't ever attend.

I'm quite surprised that something student driven hasn't replaced the blood, sweat, and tears portion of Bonfire. Let a contractor build it but wrap a huge philanthropic effort around it. Alumni get their bonfire and current students get to draw massive amounts of positive attention to the university.

Aggie Joe 93 said:

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Agthatbuilds said:

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It appears it would be a contractor built stack, not student.

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Which is a non-starter for me. Let's do a bonfire to demonstrate our hired contractor's desire to beat t.u.?

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Well put.

El Gallo Blanco said:

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CDUB98 said:

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El Gallo Blanco said:

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Probably a stupid question from a non-engineer...but is there a way to let the students still do it, but have a contractor routinely test the integrity somehow, to help avoid what happened in 99? Or maybe have some type of extra layer of supervision?

Let's be honest, building such a huge tower of heavy logs can be extremely unsafe.

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Student Bonfire has been doing it safely for years off campus. It can be done.

The problem with A&M trying is political nannying and insurance liability.

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Sorry, but that is not a big enough data set for those in charge imo. Another deadly accident would be a disaster. Saying "it hasn't happened in 24 years" won't be enough. It has to be virtually guaranteed that it won't happen again.

Also, is the off-site one just as big? It honestly looked like it from pics I've seen in recent years, but evey pic of the finished product that Isaw was pretty close up...genuinely curious.

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The current Stack design requires all logs to touch the ground (the "wedding cake" shape is achieved by cutting logs to different lengths), which limits its height to that of the tallest available trees (32 ft, IIRC). Centerpole is 45 feet tall.

stick93 said:

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I'm quite surprised that something student driven hasn't replaced the blood, sweat, and tears portion of Bonfire. Let a contractor build it but wrap a huge philanthropic effort around it. Alumni get their bonfire and current students get to draw massive amounts of positive attention to the university.

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After the university got sued over the 1999 collapse, they got paranoid about "risk management" and buried student organizations under a pile of paperwork. This made it challenging to plan "blood, sweat, and tears"-intensive projects. Big Event was the closest university-recognized thing my generation had.

What about Bonfire do you think brought students together? Was it the walking by on the way to class and watching someone else build it? In that case students should rally around the next building frame to grow out of a parking lot. BTHO driving to campus!

If Bonfire returns to campus, there might be a burn, but Aggie Bonfire dies.

TXAGBQ76 said:

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100% agree. The whole premise behind Bonfire is building it- a ton of folks organized and workin* towards a common goal, the feeling of accomplishment, the life long friendships and memories, etc. The burning is for the former students.

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You could have fooled me. We loved getting drunk and going to bonfire in the 80's.

BonfireNerd04 said:

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El Gallo Blanco said:

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CDUB98 said:

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El Gallo Blanco said:

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Probably a stupid question from a non-engineer...but is there a way to let the students still do it, but have a contractor routinely test the integrity somehow, to help avoid what happened in 99? Or maybe have some type of extra layer of supervision?

Let's be honest, building such a huge tower of heavy logs can be extremely unsafe.

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Student Bonfire has been doing it safely for years off campus. It can be done.

The problem with A&M trying is political nannying and insurance liability.

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Sorry, but that is not a big enough data set for those in charge imo. Another deadly accident would be a disaster. Saying "it hasn't happened in 24 years" won't be enough. It has to be virtually guaranteed that it won't happen again.

Also, is the off-site one just as big? It honestly looked like it from pics I've seen in recent years, but evey pic of the finished product that Isaw was pretty close up...genuinely curious.

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The current Stack design requires all logs to touch the ground (the "wedding cake" shape is achieved by cutting logs to different lengths), which limits its height to that of the tallest available trees (32 ft, IIRC). Centerpole is 45 feet tall.

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Humanity builds stupefyingly amazing crap around the globe every single day and "we" still, 25 years later, can't figure out how to endorse/safely stack some logs into a bonfire annually on campus.

It's more than a little disappointing.

cavjock88 said:

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If true, I tend to agree with 98, but who knows? Stranger things have happened and we are playing t.u. again, so maybe some Ol' Ag. nostalgia is creeping into the BOR. I'd support it and certainly think you can bring it back and do it right, but the ability to insure is iffy at best, so handling the liability would be the biggest hurdle.

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couldnt we self insure using our endowment?

El Gallo Blanco said:

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Probably a stupid question from a non-engineer...but is there a way to let the students still do it, but have a contractor routinely test the integrity somehow, to help avoid what happened in 99? Or maybe have some type of extra layer of supervision?

Let's be honest, building such a huge tower of heavy logs can be extremely unsafe.

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Yes. If we can chloroform all lawyers and insurance agents, we'll be in good shape for that.

Has the climate setbacks been discussed?

I went to Cut and helped build Bonfire in the 90s while in the Corps and appreciate what it's all about. That being said I promise you that 90% of the student population didn't give an F how or who built it, they just wanted to go to burn and the partying that went along with it, doubt that things have changed much.

El Gallo Blanco said:

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CDUB98 said:

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El Gallo Blanco said:

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Probably a stupid question from a non-engineer...but is there a way to let the students still do it, but have a contractor routinely test the integrity somehow, to help avoid what happened in 99? Or maybe have some type of extra layer of supervision?

Let's be honest, building such a huge tower of heavy logs can be extremely unsafe.

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Student Bonfire has been doing it safely for years off campus. It can be done.

The problem with A&M trying is political nannying and insurance liability.

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Sorry, but that is not a big enough data set for those in charge imo. Another deadly accident would be a disaster. Saying "it hasn't happened in 24 years" won't be enough. It has to be virtually guaranteed that it won't happen again.

Also, is the off-site one just as big? It honestly looked like it from pics I've seen in recent years, but evey pic of the finished product that Isaw was pretty close up...genuinely curious.

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F- this noise. We have the funds to pay off a coach but we can't scrape up some funds for a decent self insured policy of sorts? Go to tu and get one of their amazing attorneys to draw up a decent contract if we can't produce decent attorneys ourself. We don't need a guarantee of safety. That doesn't exist and that's why we have such panty wasted people now. It's hard. It's dangerous. It's amazing. If you're a poos then don't be involved. If you're not, accept the risk and go with it.

twk said:

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There is a certain segment of the fanbase that is just obsessed with nostalgia and want to restore the t.u. game to Thanksgiving. However, in order to make that work in the long run, they would probably need to have on campus bonfire the night before, in order to keep students on campus (with Wednesday being a reading day, the campus is a ghost town on the week of Thanksgiving week, with Monday and Tuesday classes being lightly attended, or not held at all). However, a third party built bonfire probably won't achieve the desired results.

Without bonfire on Wednesday, a Thursday game against t.u. would be much less attractive, and the nostalgia crowd will probably lose out to the folks who want to play the game on Saturday, and not interfere with Thanksgiving (in hopes that students will come back a day early).

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I wanted LSU on Thanksgiving. Screw the sips.

TAMU1990 said:

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twk said:

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There is a certain segment of the fanbase that is just obsessed with nostalgia and want to restore the t.u. game to Thanksgiving. However, in order to make that work in the long run, they would probably need to have on campus bonfire the night before, in order to keep students on campus (with Wednesday being a reading day, the campus is a ghost town on the week of Thanksgiving week, with Monday and Tuesday classes being lightly attended, or not held at all). However, a third party built bonfire probably won't achieve the desired results.

Without bonfire on Wednesday, a Thursday game against t.u. would be much less attractive, and the nostalgia crowd will probably lose out to the folks who want to play the game on Saturday, and not interfere with Thanksgiving (in hopes that students will come back a day early).

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I wanted LSU on Thanksgiving. Screw the sips.

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The refs have opposite instructions.

I built the hell outta bonfire in the 90s and get to see my daughter working on the current student bonfire off campus the last 2 years. The student bonfire is of course much smaller but the bonfire culture is still very much the same.

Just want to add that I would be very surprised if the on campus bonfire returned in its older form. The university was probably very glad to see campus bonfire dorm culture go away. That said, that's what made it so great!

Edit to add: csmfeabosdbdbsymtwitbdatoswwfff!

TexasRebel said:

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What about Bonfire do you think brought students together? Was it the walking by on the way to class and watching someone else build it? In that case students should rally around the next building frame to grow out of a parking lot. BTHO driving to campus!

If Bonfire returns to campus, there might be a burn, but Aggie Bonfire dies.

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So to you Bonfire was only about the Aggies that built it? I know in the '90s when I was in school maybe 20% of students worked on Bonfire and most of them just cut down a few trees or moved a few logs. Pretty sure it was still something special to the other 80%. I worked on it all 4 years but my wife never did. It sure as hell meant more to her than some building going up on campus.

Was there a tighter bond with the folks that put in the serious time on Bonfire? Of course, but it impacted a lot more people than that. We can't go back to what it was. I also think what we have now isn't remotely like what it was. The Bonfires I had in school were completely different from those my Dad had in the '50s as well when they just spent a few days getting some logs together to burn. The main Bonfire most people think of was the one from the 60s to the late '90s that was a Wedding Cake design with Redpots and a huge organization running it but that was really just a window in Bonfire history.

I really don't understand the almost resentful attitude of folks who worked on Bonfire towards those who didn't. I'm all for recognizing those who do more but Bonfire was never supposed to be about just those folks who worked on it the most. It was supposed to be about bringing Aggies together. That is what made it great, not whether or not trees were cut with a saw or an axe or if it was X feet tall or if outside faculty and contractors supplied help or were more intimately involved in how it was built.

It saddens me how those who spent so much time building Bonfire don't seem to have understood the actual purpose.