Photos: Private Sunset Tour of the Fire Island Lighthouse

By Mike Busch

One of the benefits of running the Fire Island and Beyond website has been meeting the fine people that work and volunteer their time at the Fire Island Lighthouse.

The Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society now has 150 volunteers that do an amazing job with community outreach and events all year-long. We plan on partnering with the lighthouse and will be covering their special events.

We will also be posting all the Lighthouse events on the Fire Island and Beyond Events Calendar.

The Lighthouse is open year round and tower tours are offered everyday until an hour before closing.

For a little history on the lighthouse and the preservation society click here.

I had been in contact with Amanda Vaskas, who is the Volunteer coordinator and program director, about a sunset photo tour of the lighthouse. These are not easy to arrange as the lighthouse, grounds, and gift shop all have to be staffed by volunteers. These tours are normally done before daylight savings time so with the time change we were getting late in the season to pull this off. Despite the cold and blizzard warnings about 15 Long Island Sun Chasers met at Robert Moses Field 5 for the short walk to the Lighthouse.

We were greeted by Amanda as well Theresa Macri who would lead us to the top of the Lighthouse with stops along the way to explain how it was built and answer questions.

We were given the freedom to visit the museum, gift shop and adjacent lens building before taking the 182 steps to the top of Long Island’s tallest lighthouse.

I have been to the top of the Lighthouse before but never at sunset and we were not disappointed with the views.

Below are some of the images submitted to the Long Island Sun Chasers Facebook page along with some of mine taken Monday, March 13th.