The University of Washington was quick to claim bragging rights after the Seattle Seahawks scored their Super Bowl XLVIII victory. In this case, though, the students at Washington couldn’t avoid that popular Super Bowl side effect of having a winning crowd losing its collective sanity for one night.
According to the local news affiliate KIRO, some of the worst of it happened at The University of Washington where students started several bonfires on several campus streets. Some of the students got so excited about their team’s big win that they started dragging furniture out of some of the fraternity and sorority houses and setting them on fire to create big, celebratory bonfires for the raucous crowds.
A video on YouTube captured footage of one of the bonfires started on the campus. A massive crowd of students are standing around it and cheering as sofas and mattresses are thrown on top of the burning heap. Eventually, a fire truck makes its way through the crowd and firefighters jump out with hoses to extinguish it.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqh9Huru8z0&w=600&h=338]
Police had to break up crowds with as many as 3,000 students trying to start several bonfires across the campus. As soon as police broke up one crowd, they had to run to another who were trying to a fire somewhere else. A reporter asked one of the students why they were celebrating their big win with bonfires and they responded, “It’s good for the environment, probably.”