Burning Beetle

The annual Burning Beetle festival in Custer was started in response to the 20-year pine bark beetle infestation in the Black Hills from the mid-1990s to the mid-2010s. Community members wanted to make something positive in response to something destructive. Burning Beetle has continued and is still celebrated in mid-January each year and features the Burning Beetle Variety Show, Torchlight March, and the downtown "Bug Crawl", all culminating with the Beetle Burn and fireworks on Pageant Hill. See our Facebook page for the latest updates.