It's been 11 years since anyone felt bonfire's flames on the grounds of Texas A&M. Administrators extinguished the tradition on campus in 1999 when the extracurricular activity claimed 12 lives.

Since then, students have built bonfire off campus, but the issue of whether or not it will return to Texas A&M has become a hot topic again.

It's a question every University president has been faced with, since 1999. Robert Gates said he wouldn't make a decision until the bonfire lawsuits had been settled. Texas A&M settled with all the victims and families last year.

Bonfire's future was the focus of a Student Senate meeting last month, with emotional debate.

"Are we willing to possibly bury more Aggies?" asked one student. "You don't honor those people who passed away by stopping doing something," said another.

For one man at the meeting, it was a familiar discussion with mostly new participants.

"Bonfire is an extremely complex issue and I would urge you not to oversimplify it," said Professor Bryan Cole. In 1999, on the heals of the Bonfire Commission's report on the collapse, Cole was asked to chair a task force to see if bonfire could burn again safely, on campus.

That fall, Cole and a 95 member team split evenly between students, faculty and staff, began their work.

"We had corps members, we had non corps members, we tried to have a very good cross section of the whole campus," said Cole.

Their charge was to develop a plan that students and the University could agree to, within parameters set by Texas A&M President Dr. Ray Bowen and the findings of the bonfire commission.

The new guidelines created a whole new ballgame:

-Now, bonfire would have to be designed and supervised by professional engineers.
-Safety experts would be involved in the entire process.
-The University, not students, would have direct control of bonfire.
-Student leaders would have to undergo new training.
-From start to finish, bonfire could only last two weeks.
-The logs used for the fire would be cut and delivered by a professional.

"That was a huge issue obviously because cut had been a very important part of the whole process," said Cole.

Although for some, it was a difficult pill to swallow, the group pushed on and sent out proposal requests to engineering and safety firms nationwide.

"Initially we sent out 642 requests for proposals. We received three engineering firms back and zero safety firms," said Cole.

Eventually the engineering company chosen was able to secure a safety firm, both of which were involved in planning and designing several new bonfire prototypes.

However, by the end of the fall '01 semester, the task force hit another roadblock.

"We also were trying to find insurance. We could not find any company in the country, we even went to Lloyds of London," said Cole.

A problem because Dr. Bowen wanted students and staff insured. At the same time, the safety firm drew up a contract that said the university couldn't hold it liable.

"We can't hold harmless any company that works for us because we're a state agency," said Cole.

The safety firm pulled out, leaving the task force with it's answer.

"That was an extremely emotional time. I still get emotional about it," said Cole. "There was a last meeting, it went for many hours and everyone was in tears, literally, because we knew, we knew."

Months later, in February of 2002, Dr. Bowen announced bonfire would not burn on campus. For the last eight years, students have organized an off campus burn.

"We're in a very comfortable situation and unless anything unforseen happened, we'll be able to keep going indefinitely," said Jeremy Stark. Stark is a senior red pot, a term for those in charge of bonfire.

Like many who work on student bonfire, Stark was in elementary school when the 1999 stack collapsed and Cole's task force began. Stark has never witnessed an on campus bonfire.

"The way I feel about it is that this is also bonfire and everybody's bonfire is going to be a little bit different," said Stark. "This is our bonfire for now."

Questions about Bonfire's future relationship with the university remain; questions Cole said A&M needs to answer once and for all.

"It is time to make a decision, and not continue to sort of have this be a wound that continues to be opened up, both for the university and for the families," said Cole.

There are other issues to consider, like cost. If bonfire was brought back under Bowen's parameters, the task force estimated it would have cost around $2.5 Million the first year Bonfire was brought back, and around $1.3 Million the following years.

Those cost estimates are eight years old. Even if every student (using 48,000 students as a reference point) volunteered to pay a $25 fee to cover Bonfire, it would still not be enough to cover the cost.

As a part of the settlement reached last year, the university promised families there would be engineering oversight if bonfire ever returns to campus.