Burn the Man!

At my last night at Burning Man this past week, 35,000 people gathered around "man" at Burning Man to watch it burn down. This year, I was lucky enough to have a front row seat for the huge ten minute fireworks-laden bonfire.



Before the "man" exploded, nearly all of the fire dancers in the US converged upon the playa to give us a spectacular show of light and sound.





Then the fireworks went off on the "man."



I had a hard time getting some good photos this year because the fireworks appeared to light the man up prematurely. The man instantly erupted into a gigantic fireball. There was smoke everywhere and many of the fireworks exploded on the ground rather than up in the air.



Still some of the fireworks made it up above the smoke and chaos.



At some point, the smoke cleared away and you could see that the man had caught on fire.



At this point, everyone started cheering and yelling "burn the man." After about 5 minutes, the structure holding the "man" collasped and the man came tumbling down.



Once the man fell, everyone started rushing into the center. The chaos has begun. Several thousand people began running around the corspe of the man, jumping up and down as if their favorite team had won the Superbowl.





I made my way to the center and got some spectacular photos of the charred remains of the man, still burning after its very public collaspe.



It was so hot in there, and combined with the fact that there were still thousands of people trying to push their way into the center, my camera nearly melted. Thank god I was wearing a fire & heat resistant flight suit.



I can't wait to next year's burn.