PolitiFact – There were floods, there was mud, but Burning Man sparked no emergency declaration

Heavy rains in Nevada temporarily stranded thousands of people and put a damper on this year’s Burning Man festival, but the situation didn’t trigger a federal emergency response.

The event is a popular counterculture celebration that has attracted thousands of people to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for more than 30 years.

“So y’all have probably heard that Burning Man was declared a national emergency, but there’s some pretty crazy stuff coming out,” said a woman in a Sept. 3 Instagram post. “It was announced earlier that Burning Man was a national emergency because it was flooded, and so they sent in FEMA,” she said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. She also said people were temporarily prevented from leaving the festival. 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.) The video was originally posted on TikTok Sept. 3 and has since received more than 194,000 views. 

(Screenshot from Instagram.)

Heavy rainfall that began Sept. 1 flooded roads and created ankle-deep mud that prompted event organizers to stop traffic into or out of Black Rock City, the temporary city constructed for Burning Man. 

PolitiFact consulted FEMA’s list of declared emergencies, White House announcements and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ list of current emergencies, and we found no evidence that the flooding at Burning Man was declared a national emergency or that FEMA responded.

Festival organizers halted travel into and out of the makeshift city starting Sept. 1 and asked Burning Man attendees to “conserve food, water, and fuel, and shelter in a warm, safe place,” in posts on X, formerly Twitter.

The White House said Sept. 3 that President Joe Biden had been briefed on Burning Man and that administration officials were “monitoring the situation and are in touch with state and local officials,” CBS News reported. We contacted the White House, but did not receive an update.

By early afternoon Sept. 4, the ban on exiting the Burning Man site expired, according to the event website. Some people waited in traffic for hours when leaving Sept. 5, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Organizers did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment.

On Aug. 20, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo declared a state of emergency because severe weather related to Hurricane Hilary was predicted statewide. Lombardo encouraged people in Nevada to prepare for flooding and washouts and said FEMA had deployed staff to support the state’s response. 

Forecasters predicted that as Hurricane Hilary dissipated it would drop significant rain on parts of Southern California and southern Nevada through the morning of Aug. 22. 

Burning Man is held in northwestern Nevada; the rain and flooding concerns began Sept. 1. Lombardo’s office did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment about the Burning Man flooding. 

Our ruling

An Instagram video claimed “Burning Man was a national emergency because it was flooded.”

Heavy rain caused flooding at Burning Man, triggering road closures and temporarily stranding thousands of attendees. But by early afternoon Sept. 4, people were able to exit the festival site.

We found no evidence the flooding triggered a national emergency declaration. We rate this claim False.