The Burn

The climax of Burning Man is the burn itself. The Man, hub of the city and symbol for just about anything people want him to symbolize, is burned in a spectacular pyrotechnic ceremony. This is not just the climax; as the city has grown overly large it has become the one single event that everybody in the community participates in. The entire city gathers to circle the Man and watch the burn.

The burn unites the community but also signals its end. In prior years the burn had been effectively the end. In 1999 it was moved to Saturday night. A full Sunday remained after the burn but somehow the City was different, and a significant portion of the population packed up and departed that Sunday.

Unfortunately, Murphy's lawyer was present at this year's burn. Normally the burn begins with a long ceremony with dance, fire and ritual. I describe that in my essay on 1998. This year, something set the Man off somewhere in his midsection by accident. Perhaps one of the special flamethrowers configured to add drama, or some other error -- whatever the cause, once started the Man can't be stopped.

The burning is so spectacular, so cathartic that much of the crowd didn't even notice that something had gone wrong. I carried some NHG II 800 speed film and an f/1.8 lens to capture sights of the burn. For this only a film camera could do the job.

My report on the burn from 1998 has better text and describes a better burn.

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The man before the burn. Lasers crisscross the sky all night.

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The burning ceremony starts with fire dancers

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Then in some sort of horrible mistake, the Man is set off, in the middle by accident. There is no ceremony. Once started, he can't be stopped.

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Fireworks shoot out from his middle

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The carnage continues

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Lighting of the Spheres

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One of my best shots, showing the fireworks zooming out into the sky.

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The fireworks turn to flames, and the stairs begin to burn. The spheres are just being lit.

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The Man falls. The spheres are now burning.

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As the man burns, the flamethrowers shoot their bursts into the sky. One person blamed them for the premature lighting.

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Man, spheres, flamethrowers.

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More burning with flamethrowers

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A lovely shot of the sphere near me, and the skeletal Man.

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The saddest shot. All around the Man, where people were sitting, this sort of crap was left behind. This had not happened in the past.

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The remains of the Man the next day

The Trash

I was, as I note above, most saddened by the ring of trash. There was almost none the year before. Somehow a good proportion of the new members of the Burning Man community were the sort of people who would leave this. And probably the ones getting drunk and shouting "burn the fucker" while they waited.

Many people who go to BM decry the increase in size. Sometimes they are just themselves in a rut, afraid of change, but on this count they are right. Those there to get drunk and leave behind bottles can be done without.

On into Utah

The story doesn't end here. After we packed up from Burning Man we continued on in our RV to what is probably the most spectacular place in the USA -- southern Utah. Continue the story here.