After a summer storm had inundated the dusty roads at the Burning Man festival, leaving tens of thousands of revelers stranded for several days, Monday afternoon finally saw these roads dry up sufficiently to enable the festival-goers to commence their departure from the northern Nevada desert.

The event coordinators initiated the process of allowing traffic to exit the main road around 2 pm local time. Despite this, they continued to encourage attendees to consider delaying their departure to alleviate traffic congestion on Monday. Approximately two hours into the mass exodus, organisers approximated a waiting period of around five hours.

The Burning Man Festival is an annual art and culture festival held in the Nevada desert. Participants create a temporary city, emphasising self-expression, community, and radical self-reliance, culminating in the burning of a massive wooden effigy.

The gathering, which was launched on a San Francisco beach in 1986, attracts nearly 80,000 artists, musicians and activists for a mix of wilderness camping and avant-garde performances.

The organisers also requested that attendees refrain from walking to the Black Rock Desert, located approximately 110 miles (177 kilometers) to the north of Reno as others including DJ Diplo and comedian Chris Rock had done throughout the weekend. The organisers did not provide a specific reason for this request. The festival had suspended vehicular access due to extensive rain, which had resulted in flooding and the formation of ankle-deep mud after more than a half-inch (1.3 centimeters) of rain fell on Friday.

The road closures came just before the first of two ceremonial fires signaling an end to the festival was scheduled to begin Saturday night. The event traditionally culminates with the burning of a large wooden effigy shaped like a man and a wood temple structure during the final two nights, but the fires were postponed as authorities worked to reopen exit routes by the end of the Labor Day weekend. "The Man” was torched Monday night while the temple is set to go up in flames 8 pm Tuesday.

The National Weather Service in Reno said some light rain showers could pass through Tuesday morning. The event began on August 27 and had been scheduled to end Monday morning, with attendees packing up and cleaning up after themselves.

At least one fatality has been reported, but organisers said the death of a man in his 40s wasn't weather-related. The sheriff of nearby Pershing County said he was investigating but has not identified the man or a cause of death. President Joe Biden told reporters in Delaware on Sunday that he was aware of the situation at Burning Man, including the death, and the White House was in touch with local authorities.

The event is remote on the best of days and emphasises self-sufficiency. Amid the flooding, revelers were urged to conserve their food and water, and most remained hunkered down at the site. Some attendees, however, managed to walk several miles to the nearest town or catch a ride there.

Diplo, whose real name is Thomas Wesley Pentz, posted a video to Instagram on Saturday evening showing him and Rock riding in the back of a fan’s pickup truck. He said they had walked 6 miles through the mud before hitching a ride. “I legit walked the side of the road for hours with my thumb out,” Diplo wrote.