Fire Island is a thin 32 mile long sand bar south of Long Island (separating the Great South Bay from the Atlantic Ocean) and only one hour or 50 miles east of New York City with pristine ocean shores, an ancient maritime Sunken Forest, a historic Fire Island Lighthouse, and 17 unique communities. Fire Island is considered one of the world?s most beautiful beaches with secluded wilderness areas host to diverse ecosystems of native and migrating wildlife and plants. Only 20% of Fire Island is developed with approximately 4,000 usable lots in 17 small communities, whom over proposals for a highway extending the length of Fire Island created the Fire Island Association, and moved Congress to create the Fire Island National Seashore "for the purpose of conserving and preserving for the use of future generations certain relatively unspoiled and undeveloped beaches, dunes, and other natural features? which possess high values to the Nation as examples of unspoiled areas of great natural beauty in close proximity to large concentrations of urban population." Public Law 88-587 (Sept. 11, 1964). Fire Island National Seashore includes Fire Island, 24 smaller islands and the William Floyd Estate in Long Island, a signer of the American Declaration of Independence. Below is a detailed Map of Fire Island National Seashore and Long Island?s Great South Bay, courtesy of the U.S. National Park Service. This is a big (500 KB) PDF file which can be viewed and printed with the Free Adobe Acrobat? Reader.

Fire Island National Seashore is New York State?s only federally designated wilderness, but unlike other national parks, FINS encompasses colonies of private property, homes and businesses that have evolved into stable, permanent villages. The absence of cars and paved roads through the island has allowed each community the isolation to develop its own character - quiet family villages, flamboyant gay communities, party towns, upscale private enclaves, hidden havens for the reclusive and singles towns. There are rental properties, summer homes, and year-round homes on the island. Several hundred residents live within Fire Island during the winter months (see the Fire Island Year Round Residents Association) and that number swells to around 40,000 in the summer. Fire Island is free of all but essential vehicle travel (no private cars allowed on the island) and almost all visits are by ferry boats departing from Long Island?s Bay Shore, Sayville and Patchogue or by private boats. Though mostly populated from May through September, the dense summer populations and traffic endangers the dunes and wilderness between the villages. It is necessary to constantly protect and preserve the dunes and forests that give rise to Fire Island?s very existence. Visit Fire Island Ecology, a site dedicated to an informed discussion of the Fire Island environment.

Learn about Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines, Fire Island's two predominantly gay and lesbian towns.

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