RENO, Nev. — Triple-digit heat across much of the U.S. West hampered crews battling dozens of wildfires Thursday, including one threatening the main travel route to the Burning Man counterculture festival in the Nevada desert.
Thousands of people have been driven from homes in Oregon, Montana and California, where a blaze burned 10 homes and threatened 500 more near a hard-hit community and another kept a popular road to Yosemite National Park closed.
In Nevada, more than 70,000 people were expected at the Burning Man art and music celebration in the Black Rock Desert by the time it culminates Saturday night with the burning of a towering effigy, and most get there by a state highway that was closed for several hours by the fire.
“The traffic is moving, but you had a lot of congestion built up so it’s very slow-going,” Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Gordon said of Nevada 447.
The lightning-sparked fire has burned about 45 square miles and is about 40 miles south of the festival. There were no reports of injuries.
“It’s not close to Burning Man at this time,” Interagency Fire spokesman John Gaffney said. “There’s a considerable distance between the fire and the festival. At this point, the goal is to keep the road open as much as we can.”