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A Burning Man attendee died Saturday night when he ran into the 45-foot-tall effigy during the nine-day-long festival's signature event, the Man Burn.
Burning Man is a 31-year-old festival where attendees live for a week in a temporary city. What began as a bonfire honoring "radical self-expression" has turned into a massive week of visible consumption and Silicon Valley tech invasions.
A man ran into the burning effigy at around 10:30 Saturday evening, according to KPCC. Black Rock City firefighters rescued the man and was airlifted to a burn center. He died at the UC Davis burn center.
The Man Burn is surrounded by a human chain of security officers, but this man managed to break through the chain and engulf himself in flames. He was one of approximately 70,000 attendees of the festival.
Updated 1:50 p.m.: The Pershing County Sheriff's department released his identity as 41-year-old Aaron Joel Mitchell. He was pronounced dead at 6:28 Sunday morning. He was not under the influence of alcohol and a toxicology report is under way.
