thumb|upright=1.35|Aggie Bonfire as it burned in 1989<!--The sign says 92 which would make it the 1989 Bonfire-->

The Aggie Bonfire was a long-standing annual tradition at Texas A&M University as part of the college rivalry with the University of Texas at Austin. In 1935, a farmer reported that students carried off his entire barn as fuel for Bonfire. To prevent future incidents, the university made Bonfire a school-sanctioned event. The following year, for the first time, the school provided axes, saws, and trucks for the students and pointed them toward a grove of dead trees on the edge of town. In 1956, there was an unsuccessful attempt to plant explosives at the Bonfire site,

In the following years the structure became more elaborate, and in 1967 the flames could be seen away. In 1969, the stack of logs set the world record for the height of a bonfire at tall.

Injuries plagued the construction process. In 1981, student Wiley Keith Jopling died after being run over by a tractor at the Cut site.

The 1980s also saw increased alcohol consumption during the Bonfire ceremony. In 1988, police issued 140 Minor in Possession (of alcohol) citations and arrested six people. The following year, the local police department brought a paddywagon to the site for the first time, as they anticipated mass arrests for alcohol violations.<!--It wasn't completely finished until hours before the burn--><!--This time-lapse of the 1994 Collapse & Rebuild is a publicly available video; youtube is simply the easiest format-->]]

After being held at the Duncan Intramural Fields on the south side of A&M's campus for 27 years, in 1992, Bonfire was relocated to the Polo Fields on the northeast <!--note that the source has the location wrong and its actual site can be seen with the location of the memorial-->corner of campus. This more isolated site, with a larger area for people to gather, made it a safer location. the 59-foot-high stack, consisting of about 5000&nbsp;logs, collapsed during construction. In addition to the mutual aid received from the College Station and Bryan, Texas EMS, Fire, and Police Departments, members of Texas Task Force 1, the state's elite emergency response team, arrived to assist the rescue efforts.

Bonfire Memorial

thumb|The Bonfire Memorial Spirit Ring

A memorial was constructed on the university polo fields, the site of the accident. Construction began in October 2003 and was completed by November 2004.

In July 2025, Student Bonfire leadership and members responded to the Kerr County floods. On October 9, 2025, the College Station City Council declared the same date to be "Bonfire Day," to recognize the group's efforts in Kerr County.

References

Further reading

  • The Texas Aggie Bonfire : tradition and tragedy at Texas A&M, (2000),
  • The official Aggie Bonfire site (now an official memorial site)