‘In it together’: Rain strands attendees at Burning Man in Nevada

Mark Fromson answered his phone from the “muddy playa” of Black Rock City Saturday afternoon, hours after heavy rain left the tens of thousands of attendees of the Burning Man festival stranded.

As rains pelted the Las Vegas Valley Friday, it also fell hundreds of miles north in the Black Rock Desert, ultimately shutting down the entrance to the annual gathering. By Sunday, at least one death was under investigation connected to the event.

Burning Man, which kicked off on Aug. 27 and culminates in the eponymous and ritual burning of a large wooden effigy, is a weeklong communal art and music experience where attendees come together each year to build Black Rock City.

It’s an experience that Fromson returned to this year for his “fifth burn.”

Last year, he brought his girlfriend. This year, he proposed to her, just two days before rain bore down on them Friday.

It was a deluge that Fromson said caught him and other festivalgoers completely off guard. He was roughly a mile away from his camp Friday evening when the rain began to fall.

That’s when he and his fiancé put on garbage bags and began the trek back across the muddy playa — the Spanish word for beach, and the affectionate nickname for the dry lakebed that the festival is held on.

“We’re all in it together,” he said. “We just hope that everybody makes it out.”

Due to recent rainfall, the Bureau of Land Management and the Pershing County Sheriff's Office officials have closed the entrance to Burning Man for the remainder of the event. Please avoid traveling to the area; you will be turned around. All event access is closed. pic.twitter.com/BY8Rv7eFLD

— Washoe Sheriff (@WashoeSheriff) September 2, 2023

The National Weather Service in Reno said more than one-half inch of rain fell on the festival site Friday, according to the Associated Press. By Saturday afternoon, the Bureau of Land Management and the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office had closed the entrance into Burning Man for the remainder of the event.

“Please avoid traveling to the area; you will be turned around,” the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a statement on social media. “All event access is closed.”

Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, assistant director of communications for the Burning Man Project, said in an emailed statement Saturday that the event is well prepared for extreme weather like rain. The organization plans to drop mobile cell trailers throughout Black Rock City Saturday night, and will deploy buses to nearby Gerlach so that people who left the playa on foot can be taken to Reno.

“Get some rest and spend some quality time with your campmates,” Debucquoy-Dodley said in the statement. “We will all get out of this, it will just take time.”

Accessibility, mobility threatened

It’s not the first time Burning Man has experienced this kind of extreme weather, and Fromson said the community of people is keenly aware of who is in attendance and out in the elements.

There are potentially thousands of children at the festival this year, he estimated — including babies — as well as wheelchair-users for whom the playa can typically be accommodating of.

That mobility has been taken away with the rain, he said, with the normally hard and packed surface rendered to cement-like mud.

In June, the Bureau of Land Management called the playa an ancient lake bed that, when wet, could be impassable. Ahead of this year’s gathering, a group of climate activists also intentionally blocked the road into the festival.

“Vehicles can get very stuck due to the fine silt and clay minerals that exist on the Playa,” the bureau wrote in a Facebook post earlier this year after the area received a high level of precipitation.

“There’s a huge amount of people over 70 (years old) that are here,” the 54-year-old Fromson said. “You worry about them in this kind of weather and whether they’ve got the right facilities to keep themselves safe.”

‘Take care of your neighbors’

Burning Man organizers posted a statement to social media Saturday urging attendees to conserve their food, water and fuel and seek shelter.

Fromson said the organizers have been communicating with attendees via Burning Man Information Radio, the official radio station of the festival, broadcasting weather updates and making sure people are informed for emergencies.

On Saturday night, in between an hour of ABBA’s greatest hits, radio DJs gave frequent updates on the weather, advising residents to stay in their camps and prepare for more rain.

The airport gate in and out of Black Rock City remained closed, announcements said, and no driving was permitted on the playa, with the exception of emergency vehicles. Buses out of the festival had also been delayed, and some were rationing ice to keep food from spoiling.

“Stay warm. Stay dry. Take care of your neighbors if they’re messed up,” one announcer said.

Fromson said he and his fiancé are in an RV, so they’re not worried about themselves.

Burners inhabit the festival in shelters that run the gamut from huge RVs, rented U-Haul trucks, cars and specialized tents called shiftpods, which are reflective and dust-repellant tents built for the typically scorching weather.

As a result, attendees with vehicles have been asked by the organizers to help people who are more exposed, Fromson said.

Nobody has knocked on their door yet, but he hopes that anybody who does need assistance feels comfortable doing so if they’re in dire straights.

Long-time “burners” remember a similar festival 23 years ago that was beset by rain, he said, but burners are bred for adversity.

“It’s a very do-it-yourself culture and Burning Man, people pride themsevles on ingenuity and surviving,” he said. “If any group of people are up for something like this, it’s the burners.”

Contact Lorraine Longhi at 702-387-5298 or llonghi@reviewjournal.com. Follow her at @lolonghi on Twitter.