There have been a number of snafus this year on the part of the Burning Man Organization, including early arrival pass problems, gate shutdowns due to overpopulation, and now this: The Temple was burned an hour early Sunday night to ease traffic to the main road.
On Sunday, Black Rock Rangers canvased the makeshift city, warning citizens that a large thundershower was headed for Black Rock City on Monday at noon, and everyone should leave Sunday or be ready to get muddy and possibly stuck until the lake bed dried out.
Radio reports on BMIR spoke of the impending storm between nearly every song. Bureau of Land Management officers didn’t seem to be as concerned, saying that the threat was only a 30 to40 percent chance. What wasn’t being mentioned repeatedly on the radio was that a decision had been made to move the Sunday night burn an hour earlier, from 9 p.m. to 8 p.m., leaving those not in the know out of luck.
Each year since 2000, when artist David Best first brought The Temple of the Mind to Black Rock City, the annual Sunday night burning of a temple has been the closest thing to a religious experience for many burners, a silent, mournful burn in stark contrast to the Saturday night party of the Man burn.
Throughout the week, people pilgrimage alone, or in groups, to the Temple to leave messages, memorials and mementoes to honor lost loved ones.
Each year, many extend their stay through Sunday night just to see the Temple burn at 9 p.m., which is part of the reason why the traffic is so bad afterward.
This year, at some unknown point, a decision was made to burn the Temple at 8 p.m., while people were still migrating out, or still at camp getting ready to leave.
Around 8:20 p.m., a large fire could be seen from all over the city as the fire peaked, while art cars raced down the streets and people of foot or bikes stopped where they were to catch a slight glimpse before the building collapsed moments later.
Instead of people talking about the beauty of the burn, people were asking why that they had missed it and how did others find out about the time change.
One person who had gone out to watch the sunset at the Temple said the burn was the least attended he’d ever seen, with only a few rows of people in position by the time the completely
wooden structure was ignited.
The line to get out was consistently six to seven hours Sunday, from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m., and many asked what difference 40 minutes really made in traffic easing, compared to the huge difference made for those who stayed but missed it.
Six hours to get out seems like nothing compared to the reports of 8 to 12 hours to get into the city on Monday, when Burning Man has more control over the traffic flow as people come into the city, not to mention those left waiting at the gate for people to leave on Friday morning before they could come in due to the city reaching peak population.
On Monday, weather reports still say there is a 20 percent chance of thundershowers, but the city is nearly empty, so most have made it out. If you have a loved one who was planning on leaving on Monday, that may be hard to do if a storm does it, depending on the severity of the storm and amount of time it takes to dry out.
Photo Credit: Josh Keppel