The Black Rock Desert in Nevada is home to the annual celebration of the week-long Burning Man event. This starts on the Monday prior to the American Labor Day and ends on the day of the holiday itself.
About 50,000 people attend the yearly grand bonfire, with even more people flocking to it as the years go by. Burning Man, a ritual burning of a large wooden effigy, has so enchanted so many people because of the novel experience of what participants described as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and self-reliance.
It all started as a bonfire ritual on the summer solstice in 1986 when Larry Harvey, Jerry James and some other friends met on Baker Beach on San Francisco and burned a nine-foot wooden man and a smaller wooden dog. In 1990, Kevin Evans and John Law planned a separate event on the remote and then unknown dry lake of Black Rock Desert, 110 miles north of Reno. Evans thought it as a dadaist event with temporary sculpture to be burned and situationist performance art.
Today, Burning Man events usually start with a communal build of the wooden man of gigantic proportions, along with extras, depending on the mood of the people. The excitement of the actual burning is matched by the adventure of camping out on a dry lake, mingling with free-spirited people, and appreciating art in whatever form it may take.