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Counter-Culture Guru Who Founded Burning Man Dead At 70

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The co-founder of the "Burning Man" festival has died. He was 70.

Burning Man Project CEO Marian Goodell says Larry Harvey died Saturday morning at a hospital in San Francisco. The cause was not immediately known but he had suffered a stroke on April 4.

Harvey created Burning Man on a San Francisco beach in 1986, later moving the annual event to Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

As many as 70,000 people from around the world now flock to a dry lakebed 100 miles (161 kilometers) east of Reno every August for what has become a weeklong celebration.

During that week people are encouraged to build a community and pursue whatever interests them, while respecting one another.

At the celebration's conclusion a towering wooden effigy is burned to the ground.

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