BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — A third Burning Man participant died while being driven to a Reno hospital, the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said Monday, as the 2026 festival reached its final day in the Black Rock Desert.
The office released no name, age, or circumstances for that death. Sheriff Jerry Allen deferred to Washoe County authorities, where the death occurred, and the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment, that outlet reported.
The disclosure raises the toll at an event that draws about 70,000 people.
“Although we average 1 death a year at the Festival, we have had two so far this year within the confines of the Festival, and I have received information regarding a third who died in transit to a hospital in Reno,” Allen, who is also the county coroner, said in a statement Monday.
The first death came Sept. 3, when dispatchers were notified at about 6:36 p.m. of a possible death at Rampart, the festival’s temporary hospital, and deputies found Sampson Tshombe dead inside it. Tshombe had been found on a street within the festival, where emergency personnel performed CPR until a certified doctor pronounced him dead, the sheriff’s office said. There were no external signs of foul play.
The Burning Man Project, which had not released a name, said a participant in his mid-50s “experienced a medical emergency, immediately received lifesaving measures, and was transported to the onsite center for emergency care.”
The second death came at about 3:17 p.m. Sept. 5, when dispatchers were told of another possible death inside Black Rock City. The sheriff’s office identified the man as Craig Mann, 60, and said he was found in a trailer he shared with his significant other; the Burning Man Project spelled the name Craigh Mann and said campmates found him. A preliminary investigation again turned up no outward signs of foul play.
Because neither man had a medical history on file, both were taken to the Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsy and toxicology screening, the sheriff’s office said. Results are expected in six to eight weeks.
“Foul play is not suspected” in either death, Allen said in the news release, which the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported was accompanied by an email in which he disclosed the third.
The deaths landed in a week already disrupted by weather. Organizers closed the gate Thursday evening due to wind and dust, then kept entry and exit closed through Friday after rain turned the desert into thick mud, asking arriving participants to wait in Reno, SFist reported. Entry reopened after the Friday shutdown, the Reno Gazette Journal reported. Nothing officials have released connects the weather to any of the three deaths.
The organization’s public statements have stayed to a single form: condolences and a list of support stations open 24 hours a day, including Black Rock Ranger peer support and Emergency Services crisis support. Its announcement, last updated Sept. 5, still describes two deaths and does not mention the third.
What is unresolved is older. Vadim Kruglov, 37, was found fatally stabbed at the 2025 event, the first homicide in the festival’s history, and no arrest has been made. Pershing County investigators received a crime lab report in late May identifying potential suspect DNA profiles and are working with state and federal partners to verify them, News 4 Reno reported. Even so, the sheriff’s office said that in the week before this year’s burn, it still had no verified information identifying a suspect and urged attendees to travel with others.
