The 2025 Burning Man festival may be over, but the impact is still being felt in Pershing County. At the Sept. 17 commission meeting, federal and county officials shared their first post-event reports, highlighting both successes and challenges from this year’s gathering in the Black Rock Desert.
Acting Winnemucca District Manager Perry Wickham reported that 131 Bureau of Land Management staff were on the playa before, during, and after the festival. Crews documented nearly 1,000 environmental issues—mostly related to fuel storage—that were forwarded to Burning Man organizers for cleanup.
The final “Leave No Trace” inspection, a key permit requirement, is scheduled for the first week of October. “Our monitors identified just under 1,000 environmental issues,” Wickham said. “We’ll determine in October whether Burning Man complied with its obligations.”
He thanked Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen and his deputies for their role in keeping the event safe. “We couldn’t do it without them,” Wickham said.
Allen, meanwhile, called the 2025 festival one of the three worst he has experienced in his 24 years with the sheriff’s office. “It’s one of the busiest times in my office, and we are still dealing with things out there,” he told commissioners.
By the numbers, deputies made 44 arrests tied directly to the festival, representing about 24 percent of all county arrests this year. The office handled 4,180 incidents over the course of the week, with 90 cases filed—25 percent of the county’s total caseload so far in 2025.
Allen said his team remains stretched, with nine inmates still in custody from the event and three staff positions yet to be filled. He also noted that the festival’s challenges did not stop at the county line. During the rain delay that slowed access to the playa, truck stops overflowed and surrounding communities saw a spike in traffic. “I’d be interested to see if Churchill and Washoe counties experienced more problems,” Allen said.
County and BLM officials will meet in Reno for the first after-action review this week. Meanwhile, deputies expect to continue responding to lingering calls from the desert as attendees fully clear out.
Despite the strain on local resources, both county and federal officials emphasized the importance of collaboration to manage the event, which draws tens of thousands of people from around the world to Pershing County each year.
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