Burning Man year that the event was held in the middle of the Black Rock Desert with no fence around it. Before the event opened to the public in 1996, a worker named Michael Furey was killed in a motorcycle crash while riding from Gerlach, Nevada, to the Burning Man camp in the Black Rock Desert. Harvey insisted that the death had not occurred at Burning Man, since the gates were not yet open. Another couple was run over in their tent by an art car driving to "rave camp," which was at that time distant from the main camp. After the
Nevada State Route 447 highway straddles the Washoe/Pershing County line. The highway enters the Black Rock Desert just before arriving at Empire, a city founded on processing gypsum extracted from the desert. The highway ends north of crossing the Union Pacific Railroad's Feather River Route in Gerlach. Just past where the official designation ends is the turn off for former State Route 34, which is used to access the large playa of the Black Rock Desert and the site of the annual Burning Man Festival. The State highway officially ends here, becoming CR 447 where the roadbed continues as a Washoe county road Before