Fire Island Lighthouse
1 Robert Moses State Pkwy, Kismet, NY
Fire Island, NY
A bold black-and-white tower standing at the western end of a thin barrier island, watching over the Atlantic where thousands of ships once made their first American landfall.
The Fire Island Lighthouse stands at the western tip of Fire Island, a black-and-white tower nearly 170 feet tall that has guided ships along the south shore of Long Island for well over a century. For countless immigrants crossing the Atlantic, this light was the first sight of America, the signal that New York Harbor lay just ahead. Its bold striped pattern, a daymark, let mariners identify it by day just as its beam marked it by night.
The lighthouse you see today was raised in 1858 to replace an earlier, shorter tower that ships kept failing to see in time. It was decommissioned in the 1970s and nearly torn down, then rescued by a community group that restored it and relit its beam. Around it spreads the Fire Island National Seashore, a rare stretch of undeveloped barrier beach with dunes, salt marsh, and wide empty sand.
What Guests Love
- Climbing the spiral stair to the gallery for a wide view of ocean, bay, and the thin ribbon of island
- The bold black-and-white daymark pattern that makes the tower unmistakable from far off
- Walking the boardwalk and dune trail out to the light through beach grass and bayberry
- Watching for shorebirds, deer, and, in season, monarch butterflies moving down the barrier beach
Worth Knowing
- The tower and its museum keep seasonal hours, so check the schedule before planning a climb
- The walk from the Robert Moses parking area is a flat mile or so across the dunes, longer in soft sand
- Summer weekends are busy; spring and fall are quieter and cooler for the walk
- This is fragile barrier-beach habitat, so stay on the boardwalks and marked trails to protect the dunes
Details
Fire Island, NY
Learn about Fire Island Lighthouse
The story of the light
The first Fire Island lighthouse was built in 1826, a squat tower that proved too short and too dim for the busy shipping lane offshore. After a series of wrecks, a much taller replacement was completed in 1858, its walls of Connecticut brick faced with the striped pattern sailors could read from miles out. Fitted with a powerful lens, it became one of the most important lights on the American coast.
For generations this was the landfall light for transatlantic ships bound for New York, and vessels crowded with immigrants would pass it in the night. Keepers and their families lived beside the tower in isolation, tending the light through storms that reshaped the beach around them. In 1973 the Coast Guard shut the light down and let it fall dark, and for a time demolition seemed likely. A local preservation group formed, raised the money to restore the tower and its keepers' quarters, and in 1986 the beam shone again. Today it operates as a private aid to navigation and a museum, cared for by that same community effort.
A barrier beach that never holds still
Fire Island is a barrier island, a long bar of sand thrown up between the ocean and the mainland, and it is constantly on the move. Waves and longshore currents carry sand from east to west along the beach, so the island slowly lengthens at its western end. When the 1858 tower was built it stood near the very tip of the island, but the beach has since grown so far past it that the light now sits well back from the point.
Behind the ocean beach lie rolling dunes anchored by beach grass, then thickets of bayberry and holly, and finally salt marsh along the bay. This layered barrier-beach system absorbs the force of storms and shelters the south shore of Long Island behind it. It is also fragile, which is why the walk to the light stays on boardwalks that keep feet off the shifting, plant-held dunes.
Wildlife along the seashore
The barrier beach is a migration corridor as much as a shoreline. In spring and fall, shorebirds and songbirds funnel along it, and hawks and falcons ride the coastal winds. Ospreys nest on platforms over the marsh, and terns and plovers nest right on the open sand, which is one more reason to keep to marked paths in nesting season.
The island's white-tailed deer are famously bold and often graze near the dune trails. In autumn, clouds of monarch butterflies drift down the island on their way south, pausing on the goldenrod and seaside flowers. Offshore, seals haul out on the winter beaches, and whales and dolphins pass in the deeper water beyond the surf.
Season by season
Summer is warm and lively, with the full sweep of ocean beach open and the light's museum in full swing, though the parking areas and boardwalk fill on hot weekends. Spring is cool and quiet, the dunes greening up and the first migrant birds arriving, a fine time for the walk out to the tower without the crowds.
Fall may be the best season of all here, with warm sand, thinner crowds, the monarch migration, and hawks streaming overhead. Winter is stark and beautiful, the beach swept empty and the tower standing against gray Atlantic skies, with seals offshore and the wind doing as it likes.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Fire Island
Robert Moses State Park
At the lighthouse, a short walk
A broad ocean beach at the western end of Fire Island, with wide sand, dunes, and the boardwalk that leads out to the light.
Kismet and Saltaire
A short distance east
Two of Fire Island's car-free beach hamlets, reached by boardwalk or ferry, with easygoing bayside docks and a slow summer pace.
Bay Shore
About 10 miles north on the mainland
A south-shore town with a lively main street and the ferry docks that serve the Fire Island communities.
Sailors Haven and the Sunken Forest
Farther east on the island
A rare maritime forest of holly and sassafras growing in the shelter behind the dunes, reached by ferry and a boardwalk loop.