Fire Island Fire

To be truthful, it's Smith Point, not Fire Island, that we can see from here. But over to the right, it's Fire Island.

We were preparing to drive to the ocean yesterday evening to take the dog for a run: grey skies and clouds scudding. There was a big black cloud being blown to shreds across Fire Island. Looked really stormy. Then we saw the flames at the base of it. Then we realised it was a fire, not another cloud. Thick black smoke. Oily.

Arriving at Smith Point, at the area of the beach where you can take dogs, we found the Mastic Beach fire truck with a fireman standing on its roof, looking towards the site of the fire. "It's a car", he said. (There's an RV park at the point--maybe it belonged to one of the campers?)

The beach was deserted apart from a couple with a wire-haired Jack Russell that ran about 1/4 mile to corner Fury, who was still on her leash. She was not impressed and I ended up on my knees in the sand trying to keep hold of her. After the JR's owners scooped up their feisty little dog, we went for a long walk along the shore, looking at the empty horseshoe crab shells and wondering where their owners were.

Suffolk County, Smith Point