Is it the same thing? It is the scarecrow-like figure of a man that is burned at this time every year. I never knew it had an English name. I never heard it called anything but the Zozobra.
Every year they build a city in ten days on BLM land in NW Nevada. In the center they build a wooden man. Every year it is different. Once a owboy, once a spaceman,etc. on the final day they burn the man and parts of the "town" down. Then they clean the desert to a "no trace left behind" They offer skits, art, music, and general craziness. A couple of years ago someone burned a missionary man on utube. Not sure if it is till around. There are lots of utube videos of burning man.
It almost didn't happen this year. The land was under water until recently.
Burning a straw man in effigy as a part of a larger bonfire goes back to Great Britain and perhaps other countries as well. Perhaps it has pagan roots?
You should watch "The Wicker Man" before you go. There's the 2006 production, with Nicholas Cage and Ellen Burstyn, and also the 1973 version with Christopher Lee, Diane Cliento, and Britt Eland.