Oct 21: Fire Island Lighthouse and Beach

Fire Island Lighthouse and Museum
by Darren de Silva

This past Friday, October 21st, we visited Fire Island and the lighthouse located there. When we arrived we saw the lighthouse with its white and black stripes from the parking lot of Robert Moses Beach. The first detail that I recognized was how the light house was no longer at the edge of the island as depicted in many older pictures and paintings but rather towards the middle with almost 5 miles of beach behind it. At first the lighthouse was built right near the inlet and directed traffic flow of boat and other vessels in and out of the inlet, but as time progressed erosion of the east end of Long Island caused the inlet to close. As the strong currents and waves keep hitting the east end of Long Island especially Montauk, the sand and sediment is moved westwards which led to the closing of the inlet and eventually the closing of the lighthouse for a period of time. In addition to fire island getting “longer”, it is also getting closer to Long Island itself. With the shifting of sand westwards, Fire Island moves almost a foot to a foot and a half closer to Long Island every year.

Image 1: The Fire Island lighthouse with the museum to the right of it. This picture was taken from the beach looking north.

Image 2: View from the top of the Fire Island lighthouse which was 17 stories high or 170 feet up. This is a view of the western portion of Fire Island where Robert Moses Beach joins the rest of the communities of Fire Island.

Another topic we learned about was the naming of Fire Island. There were many different beliefs or reasons about how Fire Island was named. Some say that because there were a good amount of Native Americans and pirates that had bonfires out on the island it was named Fire Island. Another idea was because of all of the poison ivy that grows on the island it was named Fire Island because it felt as if your skin was on fire if you contracted the skin rash. The final and most probable reason of Fire Island getting its name was a simple mispronunciation of five, or the Dutch word vier for four, which was written as fire and this gradually stuck as a permanent name of the barrier island.

Image 3: Lecture on the beach adjacent to the Fire Island lighthouse where we learned about year around life on Fire Island.

Winter on Fire Island
by Sarah McTague

On all 32 miles of Fire Island, sits only 17 communities that were grandfathered into the National Seashore in the year 1964. A survey in 2010 documented only 272 people actually live on the island year round, now reaching around 400 in 2016, due to the harsh lifestyle these people must endure. In the hustle and bustle of what is Long Island, filled to the brim with suburbs and shopping centers, Fire Island is something of a completely different nature, literally. It was created in the mindset that people can leave the busy city and enjoy nature fully. This being said, those living on the island have no grocery shops, and a one room school house that teaches children up to the 8th grade. Life progressively gets more difficult in the winter time, especially due to the fact that there are only two ways off Fire Island: car or ferry. Both have their own issues however. There are a limited amount of car permits, and only if someone dies or moves out will it get passed down. The ferry tries running in the winter, however whenever the bay is too icy or conditions are too unsafe, it will not make the trip over to the Island. This means people on the island must very self-reliant as well as dependent on other community residents to survive through the rough winters.

Not only is the solitude of these people hard enough during the winter, the storms that hit Fire Island surely don’t make life any easier. Being right on the beach coast means direct impact from storms rolling through Long Island, resulting in many power outages. Residents must “winterize” their houses, no matter if year-round or only seasonally living on the island. This is to protect their houses from any type of extreme weather event, from just wind to massive snow storms. Unlike the rest of Long Island that gets plowed with any snow, there are no plows for the residents and their one inland road they use to get to and from the bridges. Another issue is the storm surges created due to winter storms, with large waves threatening the homes that line the coast. In the massive blizzard of 1996, three homes and a restaurant were actually washed away.

Seeing Fire Island for one of my first times was an incredible experience. I have so much respect for the people of these communities for surviving out the winter on this barrier island, and though it may be tough, the view is sure worth it.

The creation of Fire Island and the light house
by Jennifer Stahl

On October 21st 2016 our class took a trip to Fire Island and the light house. We first started off with a lecture on the beach about the formation and history of Fire Island. We discussed how the movement of sediment from the east of Long Island to west helped set a “platform” for Fire Island to become what it is today. Fire Island is a barrier Island which is location between the Atlantic Ocean and Great South Bay. Before the 1600’s Fire Island was used only for whaling because it wasn’t a stable place to live all year round; it wasn’t until the late 1700’s that Fire Island got its actual name. When the 1900’s came around Fire Island become more popular; 17 little communities were created on the Island with residents that lived all year round and visitors came for the summer.

The picture above shows the Fire Island light house in the distance. Since Fire Island was used only for whaling in the past and became a maritime community, having a light house was helpful for navigation. The lighthouse helped alert sailors as to where they were; the light at the top of the light house was burned using whale oil.

The Fire Island Lighthouse
by Chris Wozny

Looking up at 191 steps to the top of the Fire Island Lighthouse built in 1858. With the most advanced lense of it’s time, the 168ft. tall tower served as a navigational beacon warning ships of the many dangerous sandbars located off the coast of Long Island. The construction took almost a year and nearly 800,000 bricks to complete.

In 1982 the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society was formed in order to preserve the sight and Lighthouse. They raised $1.3 million and successfully restored and relit the beam in 1986. The signal now flashes every 7.5 seconds during nighttime hours.

Once you climb to the top of the 17 story tower there’s an amazing view of Fire Island. Many of the communities of Fire Island are visible from the tower, the closest being Kismet. In 1964 The Fire Island National Seashore set out to protect the island from further development.

The original First Order Fresnel Lense was the largest of it’s kind, 16 feet high and weighing 4.5 tons. This large size and lense design allowed it to produce a light beam visible from 20 miles off shore, using only a 4.5 square inch flame fueled by sperm whale oil.

Each lighthouse house has a different signature flash sequence, the Fire Island Lighthouse original beam used to flash for 5 seconds every 55 seconds. This was accomplished mechanically by means of a “Flying Pendulum” which would lower a weight down the center of the lighthouse, spinning a drum which would turn the gears. The pendulum weight would have to be manually cranked back into position every 4.5 hours by the lighthouse keeper.


Museum and History of the Fire Island Lighthouse
by Chris Meyer

Information from Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society. Pictures used were taken personally.

One very interesting aspect of the Fire Island Lighthouse is the history of the structure. This history is very closely linked with some of the other posts from my colleagues this week. Both erosion and technological advances have played a large role in the history of the lighthouse. The original, 74-foot, cream colored tower was completed in 1826, but was too short. It was also built on a low part of ground, that decreased visibility further. This was dismantled in 1857 and a similarly colored, 168-foot tall lighthouse was erected just next to it. Rather than run the light twenty-four hours per day, the lighthouse was adorned with striped to identify it during the day. The new, taller lighthouse and then the updated paint job are pictured below.

The museum below the lighthouse also provided some fun and interesting information about other lighthouses and aspects of the area. One of these was the Ponquogue Lighthouse in Southampton. It was constructed in 1858, but decommissioned in 1931 and demolished in 1948. There were exhibits and descriptions of the beach erosion and movement, as well as a description about a lesser known contributor to dune and beach erosion, the dune bug. The description of a dune bug is someone who walks or drives along the dunes, breaking down the ecosystems and leading to increased erosion. It ends with the strong suggestion: “DON’T BE A DUNE BUG.” Pictured below is Peter the Dune Bug.

History of Fire Island and Robert Moses
by Andrew Vernon

On our trip to Fire Island this past week we learned about the islands natural history and past development. While visiting the lighthouse we stopped at the beach and were given a lecture on these topics. The island remained uninhabited for many years other than the few Native Americans and pirates. Eventually, people began to see the island for its natural beauty and pristine beaches. Some people began to live on the island despite being cut off from everyday resources.

The value of the island was seen by Robert Moses, a city planner and businessman. He wanted to build up the island as a tourist attraction for people from the city. However, part of his goal was to keep the lower class away, wanting the island to be for the upper class only. To accomplish this, the bridges connecting Fire Island to the rest of Long Island were built so that buses could not go across. Fire Island, now a National Park, still maintains the Robert Moses beach, where Moses built up much of the island. The National Park Service designated the island as a National Seashore in part because of Robert Moses’s anti-lower class views.

Fire Island as seen from atop the lighthouse: