The Fire Island Lighthouse

The story of the Fire Island Lighthouse begins in the early 19th century, a time when America’s coastal trade was booming, and shipwrecks were a frequent peril along the busy shipping lanes near New York Harbor.

The first Fire Island Lighthouse was constructed in 1826. This initial tower stood at 74 feet tall and was built from Connecticut brownstone, a durable but relatively simple material.

It was equipped with a basic lighting system: 18 whale oil lamps paired with parabolic reflectors, producing a fixed white light with a modest range of about 10 nautical miles. Its height and limited optical technology proved insufficient, as the beam struggled to penetrate fog or reach the outer shoals where ships often foundered.

Fire Island Lighthouse. Photo: Daniel Stefanita

By the 1850s, the inadequacies of the first lighthouse were clear, leading Congress to appropriate $40,000 for a replacement. Construction of the second Fire Island Lighthouse began in 1857 and was completed in 1858.

Designed by the U.S. Lighthouse Service, the new tower soared to 168 feet (51.2m), making it one of the tallest lighthouses on the East Coast at the time.

It was built using red brick, with an interior lined with an additional layer of brick for stability, and its exterior was painted with distinctive black-and-white horizontal bands for daytime visibility.

The lighthouse’s foundation was engineered to withstand the shifting sands and harsh coastal conditions of Fire Island. It rests on a 12-foot-deep base of concrete and stone, providing a solid anchor against erosion and storms.

The tower tapers gracefully from a base diameter of 28 feet to 9 feet at the lantern room, a design that enhances both structural integrity and wind resistance. Inside, a cast-iron spiral staircase with 182 steps winds its way to the top, supported by a central iron column.

The crowning technical achievement of the new lighthouse was its First Order Fresnel¹ lens, installed in 1858. Manufactured by Henry-Lepaute of Paris, the massive lenses were over 9 feet (2.74m) tall and weighed approximately 6,000 pounds (2722Kg).

Powered initially by a single kerosene lamp with a five-wick burner, the lens produced a flashing white light every minute, visible up to 21 nautical miles under optimal conditions. This represented a dramatic improvement over the earlier system and underscored the lighthouse’s critical role in maritime safety.

Throughout its operational life, the Fire Island Lighthouse adapted to technological advancements. In 1891, a fog signal was added—a steam-powered horn housed in a separate building, emitting a 5-second blast every 30 seconds to aid navigation in poor visibility. The fog signal required a 10-inch steam whistle and a coal-fired boiler, consuming significant resources but proving invaluable during the region’s frequent foggy days.

In 1938, the lighthouse was electrified, replacing the kerosene lamp with a 1,000-watt incandescent bulb. This upgrade, combined with the Fresnel lens, increased the light’s intensity to approximately 90,000 candlepower, though the lens’s range remained tied to its height and curvature of the Earth.

The electrification also introduced an automatic bulb changer, reducing the workload for keepers. The light’s characteristic flash—produced by a rotating mechanism driven by a clockwork system in its early years—was later motorized, maintaining its one-minute interval.

The Fire Island Lighthouse was decommissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard on December 31, 1973, as modern navigation systems like radar and GPS rendered traditional lighthouses obsolete. Its original First Order Fresnel lens was removed and replaced with an automated aero beacon, but even this was short-lived.

The tower faced potential demolition until the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society (FILPS) intervened in 1982. After raising funds and collaborating with the National Park Service, FILPS restored the lighthouse, relighting it in 1986 with a smaller, modern optic — a 190-watt halogen bulb producing a flashing white light every 7.5 seconds, visible for 15 nautical miles as a private aid to navigation.

The original Fresnel lens, a technical marvel, was preserved and is now displayed in a museum adjacent to the tower. The lighthouse itself was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, recognizing its architectural and historical significance.

Today, the Fire Island Lighthouse is a popular destination within the Fire Island National Seashore. Visitors can climb its 182 steps to reach the lantern room, where the 360-degree views stretch across the Atlantic Ocean, Great South Bay, and, on clear days, to Manhattan’s skyline.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org
• https://npshistory.com/

Notes

1. Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Newton's corpuscular theory, from the late 1830s until the end of the 19th century. He is perhaps better known for inventing the catadioptric (reflective/refractive) Fresnel lens and for pioneering the use of "stepped" lenses to extend the visibility of lighthouses, saving countless lives at sea. The simpler dioptric (purely refractive) stepped lens, first proposed by Count Buffon and independently reinvented by Fresnel, is used in screen magnifiers and in condenser lenses for overhead projectors.

The Fire Island Lighthouse

Notes

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