A man was found dead at Burning Man on Thursday, and was declared dead by event medical staff before county authorities arrived on the scene.
As the Reno Gazette Journal reports, the Pershing County Sheriff's Office has released the name of the deceased man: Shane Billingham. His cause of death is under investigation, and the case is being investigated as suspicious.
Billingham was transported to Black Rock City's Rampart medical tent, as KRON 4 reports, and after he died, staff called in the county coroner.
It can't be confirmed at this time, but a New Zealand man by the name of Shane Billingham posted in recent weeks to Facebook about heading to Burning Man. That Shane Billingham also posted photos from the festival in 2018, and this year said he was heading "to build Beats Boutique @9.30 Esplanade." A friend posted to the Beats Boutique Facebook page this morning saying, "Just read that Shane passed away on the playa. I truly hope this isn't true."
Deaths sometimes occur at Burning Man, which is essentially a temporary city of 80,000 people, though far fewer than you may think. One man ran into the flames of the burning man and perished in 2017, and in 2014 a woman died after accidentally being run over by a bus on the playa. As one former Black Rock City employee explains, the reason that Burning Man now has designated roads and camping is restricted to blocks within the current design is that a person was killed one year when their tent in the deep playa was run over by a vehicle traveling at high speed.