Virginia Chi Phi Ritual Includes the Shooting Flaming Stuffed Animals into Trash Piles

Fires Reported at Student Residences

The University of Virginia's Chi Phi chapter has some unusual Bid Day practices - one of which includes the launching of flaming stuffed animals into a pile of trash. This past weekends Bid Day, however, caused a little more excitement than the frat is normally used to, as the Charlottesville Fire Department responded to the incident.

"It's purely visual, to excite the new pledges," said Harrison Wheaton, Chi Phi president. "It is nothing to the scale of a brush fire."

When the fire department arrived, the brothers had already properly extinguished the flames. Brothers believe that some of their neighbors may have alerted 911 because it probably looked like their hedges were on fire.