Texas A&M University President Ray Bowen announced last week that the school's annual bonfire will go on a two-year hiatus to allow experts, admininstrators and students to reevaluate the structure's safety.
The long-awaited response comes seven months after the almost 60-foot tall, two-million-pound log edifice came crashing down, killing 12 and injuring 27, while students were constructing it.
"When the tradition does resume, in 2002 at the earliest, the bonfire will be far smaller and the construction will be much more professionally run," Bowen told the Associated Press.
Bowen also said he considered doing away with the tradition altogether, but a student campaign that garnered over 7,000 signatures on paper and over 2,000 more through its Web site and email -- roughly 20 percent of the size of the university's student body -- swayed his opinion.
A investigative group commissioned and funded by the university attributed the tragedy to faulty construction and insufficient supervision of students.
Bowen said the construction of the bonfire will continue to be a student-run activity but some changes will be made.
The next bonfire will mirror an older, shorter design, and the wood will be delivered instead of being harvested by students as it has been done in the recent past.
A task force of students, administrators and faculty will develop a plan -- expected to be released in April of 2001 -- for the 2002 bonfire.
A memorial service will replace the event this year. Another replacement event for 2001 is yet to be determined.
Though the disaster at Texas A&M has resulted in action there, Dartmouth's annual homecoming bonfire differs greatly both in structure and supervision.
"At an appropriate time, we will try to learn from the accident there," Dean of the College James Larimore told The Dartmouth shortly after the fatal Texas A&M incident. "But until then it's unclear how it will affect our annual review process."
The wood for the bonfire, which arrives at the Dartmouth campus stripped of its bark and processed into a rectangular shape, is ordered in the spring and dries all summer.
The Texas A&M bonfire, however, is built differently from the College's bonfire. Using 7,000 round and unprocessed logs, students there use a center pole to buttress the formation -- making the structure likely to topple if the single center log collapses.
November's crash was the second such occurrence in Texas A&M's recent history. In 1994, a partially constructed bonfire fell apart, but was rebuilt and later ignited.
While the Dartmouth structure is only 36 feet in height, the Texas A&M bonfire is designed to be 60-feet tall. When the structure collapsed in November, it was two-thirds completed.
According to witnesses, a crane lifting a log hit the stack too hard, reportedly cracking the center pole at the base. Between 60 and 70 students were said to be on the structure at the time.
Students gathered around the site beginning in the early morning hours after the crash, watching rescue workers search for bodies in reported disbelief.
The Texas A&M bonfire began in 1909 as a pregame tradition. The bonfire was to have been ignited this year on Thanksgiving, the night before the football game against the University of Texas.
The highly anticipated tradition usually attracts tens of thousands of spectators each year. Since the inception of the bonfire tradition, only once has the event not been held; in 1963, it was cancelled in the immediate aftermath of President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Texas A&M sophomore Diana Estrada told the Associated Press in November she was about 200 yards away from the bonfire at the time it collapsed. "It just toppled over, and the wires snapped, and the lights started sparking and going on and off," she said.
"We ran over there as fast as we could, and we could see legs sticking out and hear people screaming."
Throughout the bonfire's history, Texas A&M has made an effort to promote safety. Students who wish to participate in the building of the bonfire must take a safety instruction course before being allowed access to the site.
At Dartmouth, no safety course is required for participation in building the bonfire. Instead, freshman student volunteers help place pieces of wood in their predetermined spaces while upperclassmen and construction workers stand by.
Participants are required to wear hard hats and gloves, and the number allowed on the structure is limited at any given time.
In the Texas A&M incident, the district attorney of Brazos County is determining whether or not to press criminal charges of negligence. The Texas Board of Engineers also voted to conduct its own investigation.
