Burning Man effigy torched

SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco performance artist was arrested early Tuesday after allegedly burning the namesake of the Burning Man counterculture festival four days ahead of schedule.

Paul Addis, 35, of San Francisco was booked into Nevada's Pershing County jail on suspicion of arson, illegal possession of fireworks, destruction of property and resisting a public officer, according to the sheriff's department.

Addis posted a $25,632 bond and was due to be released from custody late Tuesday afternoon, a sheriff's dispatcher said.

Traditionally, the approximately 40-foot tall wood and neon structure gets set ablaze on the last night of Burning Man in the ceremonial climax of the weeklong annual event in the Black Rock Desert.

The festival's in-house fire department, the Black Rock City Emergency Services Department, extinguished the 2:58 a.m. fire in under half an hour, said Burning Man spokeswoman Andie Grace. The fire also damaged part of the Green Man Pavilion, the exhibition space on which the figure was perched, the statement said.

No injuries were reported, although many festival-goers were awake watching Tuesday's lunar eclipse and said they saw a man later identified as Addis deliberately ignite the figure, Grace said.

"It was in plain sight of many people," she said. "Everyone is looking at it this morning, this big black figure in the sky and that wasn't supposed to burn, saying, 'Now what do we do?' "

Organizers of the art, music and performance festival, which draws thousands of people to the remote northern Nevada desert, said the gathering that started Monday would go on as planned.

The fire started on the Burning Man's left shin and scorched about 85 percent of the structure, Grace said.

Event engineers decided it would be best to dismantle it and rebuild a less elaborate version, accomplishing in two days what normally takes weeks so the figure would be finished in time for Saturday night's burning, she said.

Grace declined to comment on a possible motive for the incident, other than to say she assumed the early burn was timed to coincide with the eclipse.

"It's obviously a pretty selfish act, and people are disappointed about that, but spirits overall are pretty high," she said.

Addis is an actor and writer who is active in the San Francisco arts scene and recently portrayed Hunter S. Thompson in a play about the late journalist known for his drug-fueled lifestyle, according to entertainment listings posted on the Internet.

Burning Man began in 1986 at San Francisco's Baker Beach, and was moved to the Black Rock Desert in 1990. That year, the effigy was cut up with a chain saw and had to be reassembled before the ritual burning, Grace said.