Nevada route to Burning Man reopens amid fire

RENO — Firefighters battling a wildfire near the Burning Man festival say they’re trying to keep the main highway open to the counterculture celebration in the Nevada desert.

Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Gordon says State Route 447 connecting Interstate 80 to the festival was closed for several hours overnight but reopened Thursday morning.

Gordon says traffic is moving in both directions but it’s “very slow going.”

Interagency fire spokesman John Gaffney says the biggest priority is protecting about a half dozen ranches threatened by the fire that has burned about 45 square miles (116 square kilometers).

The blaze is about 40 miles south of Burning Man.

He says aircraft are attacking the flames that are chewing through sagebrush and cheatgrass in temperatures expected to reach triple digits.

The Nevada Department of Transportation shut down traffic on Nevada 447 in both directions between Empire and Nixon. There is an alternate route to Burning Man from Reno, but it's a six-hour drive up U.S. 395 to Alturas, California.

The fire started on Tuesday northwest of Pyramid Lake in the mountains west of the highway.

Burning Man began Aug. 27 and ends Monday.