Burning Man came to a close this week. Now in its 40th year, the annual gathering brought together more than 60,000 people in the desert about 100 miles outside of Reno, Nevada. There, they built a massive temporary city in which they could dance, connect,
share their art, tell stories, and burn a 40-foot wooden man on the final night.
But the closing this year also came with the tragic news that three people had never made it home. On Thursday, Sept. 3, Sampson Tshombe, who was in his mid-50s, was found unresponsive on the streets of Black Rock City, as the area is called, and was given CPR. A doctor pronounced him dead on site. One person on Reddit, who claimed to have been nearby, said they saw medical personnel rush to Tshombe’s aid. “Saddened by the loss and shaken at how sudden it can happen,” they wrote. (The Redditor did not respond to a DM for comment.) Other Burners posting on Reddit described Tshombe as “incredibly gracious” and “a truly good human.”
The next day, Sept. 4, 51-year-old attendee Armando Ramirez died in an ambulance while on his way to a hospital in Reno. On Saturday, Sept. 5, around 3 p.m., a 60-year-old man named Craig Mann was found dead in his camp. No cause of death has been released for any of the men. (Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen did not respond to a request for comment on the two deaths that occurred in Black Rock City, and the Washoe County Coroner’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on Ramirez’s death, which occurred within their jurisdiction.) Though foul play is not suspected in any of these deaths, all three are undergoing autopsies and toxicology screenings, which can take several weeks,per local reports.
“We are deeply saddened whenever the Burning Man community experiences a loss and extend our deepest condolences to their families, friends, campmates and all those affected,” Burning Man organizers wrote in a statement.
‘The Vacation of Choice’
In 1986, a few dozen people gathered on a beach in San Francisco to light an eight-foot effigy and commune with nature — and one and other — under the great open skies. In 1988, Burning Man was given its name; two years later, it found a new home in Nevada.
The gathering on the playa, as it’s known, has changed massively over the years. By 1996, it was on the cover of Wired, and had already begun to attract a more affluent demographic. As cofounder John Law put it in a recent op-ed in theSan Francisco Standard, “What had begun as a strange desert expedition became the vacation of choice — and eventually something close to a required pilgrimage — for the emerging Silicon Valley elite.” That year also came with its first death, when a 37-year-old San Francisco artist named Michael Furey accidentally drove a motorcycle into a parked van.
Fatalities at the Burn
Burning Man has only grown since, attracting hundreds of thousands if not millions of revelers across the decades. As several Burners pointed out, both on message boards and to Rolling Stone, with such a large gathering, it’s not unexpected to have some fatalities.
According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, a dozen people total have died while attending the gathering, including the three this year. Most of those deaths have been accidents like falling off structures, overdoses, suicide, or preexisting conditions like asthma.
Last year, however, saw the playa’s first homicide, when a 37-year-old man was found dead. As Rolling Stone reported, Vadim Kruglov was stabbed to death the final night, as the giant wooden man burned. The Russian emigré, who was living in Washington State, was a first-time attendee, and had built an art installation at his camp. One friend described it as “a big heart . . . that seems to have taken these wounds, made them part of art and closed the circle of experience.” Kruglov’s death is still under investigation.Burning Man organizers note that they have remain in “close contact” with the sheriff’s office.
How News of Death Spreads
According to people who were there this year, news of the deaths spread around the city, but it didn’t dominate the conversation as much as it did off the playa.
Though cell service can be spotty in the desert, “many camps have Starlink at this point, so whenever there’s any news of something going on at the burn, it usually spreads,” explains Alex Canter, who went for the fourth time this year. By the time he drove out last Wednesday, reports of Tshombe’s death had already hit the news. “Then I met someone who mentioned that an older gentleman had died at his camp, and that was really sad,” he says.
Others also heard the news through fellow campers, with one attendee saying she’d been told that “elderly” people had died in the city of natural causes, which caused concern and sadness, though not alarm. With no official causes of death yet released, the rumors don’t appear to be wholly accurate as the eldest person to die at the gathering was 60. (The population, is, in fact, getting older. According to the Black Rock City Census 2025 Population Report, which was published in June, roughly 24 percent of participants last year were 50 or older, up from 16 percent in 2014. In 2014, almost 30 percent of people who attended were in their twenties; last year, that number dropped to just 10 percent.)
Others attendees, like Jessica Lum, who was there for her third time, tell Rolling Stone that they weren’t aware of any fatalities until they returned home. “I am sending all my prayers to the families of those who passed,” Lum says.
Click here to read the full article.
