‘Burn, beetle, burn’: South Dakotans torch an effigy of destructive bug

Hundreds of people set fire to a giant wooden beetle in the annual festival to raise awareness of the harmful pine beetle

In what’s become an annual winter tradition: hundreds of people carrying torches set fire to a giant wooden beetle effigy in Custer, South Dakota, to raise awareness of the destructive impact of the mountain pine beetle on forest land in the Black Hills.

Custer firefighters prepared and lit the torches for residents to carry in a march to the pyre Saturday night in the 11th Burning Beetle fest, the Rapid City Journal reported.