Burning Man exit delays decrease after floods strand thousands in Nevada desert.
Exodus from Burning Man Festival Begins After Epic Rainstorm
The traffic jam leaving the Burning Man festival eased up considerably Tuesday as the exodus from the mud-caked Nevada desert entered a second day following massive rain that left tens of thousands of partygoers stranded there for days.
A pair of brothers from Arizona who took their 67-year-old mother with them to Burning Man for the first time spent 11 hours into early Tuesday morning just getting out of the festival site, which is 15 miles (1.6 kilometers) from the nearest city of Gerlach, Nevada.
“It was a perfect, typical Burning Man weather until Friday—then the rain started coming down hard,” said Phillip Martin, 47. “Then it turned into Mud Fest.”
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Event organizers began letting traffic flow out on the main road around 2 p.m. local time Monday—even as they urged attendees to delay their exit to help ease traffic. About two hours after the mass departure began, organizers estimated a wait time of about five hours.
By Tuesday morning, wait times had dropped to between two and three hours, according to the official Burning Man account on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter.
The annual gathering, which launched on a San Francisco beach in 1986, attracts nearly 80,000 artists, musicians, and activists for a week-long mix of wilderness camping and avant-garde performances.
The festival had been closed to vehicles after more than a half-inch of rain fell Friday, causing flooding and foot-deep mud.
The road closures came just before the first of two ceremonial fires signaling an end to the festival was scheduled to begin Saturday night. The event traditionally culminates with the burning of a large wooden effigy shaped like a man and a wood temple structure during the final two nights, but the fires were postponed as authorities worked to reopen exit routes by the end of the Labor Day weekend.
Organizers had also asked attendees not to walk out of the Black Rock Desert about 110 miles north of Reno during that time as others had done throughout the weekend, including DJ Diplo and comedian Chris Rock.
“The Man” was torched Monday night while the temple is set to go up in flames 8 p.m. Tuesday.
The National Weather Service in Reno said some light rain showers could pass through Tuesday morning.
The event began Aug. 27 and had been scheduled to end Monday morning, with attendees packing up and cleaning up after themselves.
“We are a little bit dirty and muddy, but spirits are high. The party still going,” said Scott London, a Southern California photographer, adding that the travel limitations offered “a view of Burning Man that a lot of us don’t get to see.”
Disruptions are part of the event’s recent history: Dust storms forced organizers to temporarily close entrances to the festival in 2018, and the event was twice canceled altogether during the pandemic.
At least one fatality has been reported, but organizers said the death of a man in his 40s wasn’t weather-related. The sheriff of nearby Pershing County said he was investigating but has not identified the man or a cause of death.
President Joe Biden told reporters in Delaware on Sunday that he was aware of the situation at Burning Man, including the death, and the White House was in touch with local authorities.
The event is remote on the best of days and emphasizes self-sufficiency. Amid the flooding, revelers were urged to co
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