BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — At about 9:45 Saturday night, the crowd was all expectation as fireworks began blazing around the base of the Burning Man figure, 40 feet tall, looming against the black sky over the Black Rock Playa and Black Rock City eight miles from Gerlach, Nev.

It seemed that most of the 50,000 Burners at this year’s event were jammed up in a circle 1,000 feet from the base of the Man. It had been a hot, windy day with whiteouts common around the semicircle of Black Rock City. Lectures, dancing, biking, riding strange vehicle and wandering was the occupation for most of the day. And yes, smoking pot and dressing down to nothing for some. But now it was time for the climax of the counter-culture annual gathering here.

Yesterday it had been the turn of the Megaopolis to go up in flames — this was a collection of four large boxlike vertical structures symbolizing much of what was wrong with American cities. The fireworks then had been stupendous, and as the buildings went up in flames the crowd cheered. And Sunday night it would be the turn of the Temple — a vast, complex structure of flat boards where Burners had written on boards in memory of friends and loved ones, of philosophy, of other times. Much thinking here.

And also many of the art works scattered about this vast playa where the 49ers struggled to get to the West to join the incandescent parade. The giant looming blue lady, made of wire into a 90-foot tall figure would probably be saved. Made of steel, she would hardly burn and she was too beautiful to be dismantled.

And the horse on a golf cart, that would go back to the streets. And the four giant letters O I N K would be moved off the playa, to decorate a place in Marin County.

But now it was the man’s turn. As the fireworks shattered the sky, the flames began licking up the Man’s legs, slowly at first. The crowd closest to the Man screamed in pleasure as the symbol of the night began to burn. The scaffolding on it the Man rested started to burn as well and then the right arm started to sag, bend and droop. The legs were afire and the chest outlined in fiery ribs and then more fireworks and the man slow began to fall.

That was the scene Saturday night as the Burners hailed their symbol. It was pure carnival with the propane cannons firing away silently this year but with great blobs of fire.

And meanwhile, Pershing and Washoe county police joined the Bureau of Land Management, officially in charge of the event, got ready to put another Burning Man behind them. They knew that Highway 447 would be bumper to tailgate traffic for much of Sunday, and their usual problems would disappear. The usual drug arrests, the heat prostrations, the minor scrapes and bumps were behind them. No children were injured, no heavy hands were laid on those making minor drug offenses. NO hard-handed police action, Just Burning Man 2010.

Another salute to a different way of living.