Twenty-six years ago, at 2:42 a.m. on November 18, 1999, the Texas A&M Bonfire stack collapsed on campus, killing 12 students and injuring 27 others – in one of the darkest moments in the university’s history.
The tragedy ended a 90-year tradition that had begun in 1907 as a scrap-wood fire and evolved into an elaborate student-led engineering project. By the 1990s, the Aggie Bonfire rose to more than 50 feet and drew crowds of up to 70,000 spectators each year before the Thanksgiving football game against the University of Texas.
The 1999 stack was intended to be the 90th on-campus Bonfire. However, it was the second time in history the structure would not burn – the first being 1963, when the wooden stack was dismantled in respect for President John F. Kennedy after his assassination.
A special investigation commission later determined that design flaws, such as inadequate wiring and stacking of wooden logs, and insufficient oversight by inexperienced student leaders, caused the 1999 collapse.
In the years immediately following the tragedy, the university indefinitely suspended the student-built Bonfire. A permanent memorial was later dedicated at the exact site of the 2004 collapse.
The Bonfire Memorial includes a Tradition Plaza, a walkway tracing the tradition from 1909 to 1998, and a circular Spirit Ring with 12 granite portals – one for each life lost – oriented toward the hometowns of the fallen Aggies. Twenty-seven additional stones honor those who were injured.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, in June 2024, Texas A&M President Mark Welsh III formally announced that the university would not reinstate an official on-campus Aggie Bonfire. There were some online rumors that it would return last year, along with the return of the football rivalry against the University of Texas, which rejoined the Southeastern Conference that year.
Each November 18 at 2:42 a.m. – the exact minute of the 1999 collapse – thousands of current students, alums, and family members gather at the Bonfire Memorial for a remembrance ceremony. Attendees observe 12 minutes of silence, one for each life lost, followed by the reading of the victims’ names.
The names of the 12 Aggies who passed away in the 1999 bonfire tragedy are:
Miranda Adams
Christopher Breen
Michael Ebanks
Jeremy Frampton
Jamie Hand
Christopher Heard
Timothy Kerlee Jr.
Lucas Kimmel
Bryan McClain
Chad Powell
Jerry Self
Nathan West
The remembrance ceremony concludes shortly before dawn, after which many participants attend a sunrise church service and visit the memorial’s portals.