Past Time to Deal With Beach Fires

In light of this week’s report that a 4-year-old girl was badly burned on one foot after stepping on the smoldering remains of a beach bonfire at Maidstone Park one thing is clear: The era of freestanding fires at the town’s heavily used public beaches is over.

Taking even a moment to consider it, the Town of East Hampton’s policy of allowing beach fires anywhere, even within lifeguard-protected areas when lifeguards are not on duty, is unacceptable. Time and again, those who kindle these fires have proven unable or unwilling to comply with basic rules — that they not contain nails and be extinguished with water, for example. As often as not, even when no injuries occur carelessness results in unbelievable messes confronting the next day’s early walkers as well as an added burden for town employees who are charged with cleaning up.

And the effect is long-lasting. Buried fires, even those put out properly, leave burn scars and blacked charcoal in the sand. In places like downtown Montauk, Beach Hampton, and Atlantic Avenue and Indian Wells in Amagansett, as well as some bay beaches, the debris leaves the once-white sand flecked with black.

This is in startling contrast to East Hampton Village beaches, where a relatively recent rule is that all fires must be in metal containers. If town officials haven’t done so, they should take a field trip to see for themselves how well the new village rule is working.

And then there is the matter of a young girl shaken by a family’s evening picnic that turned traumatic. This cannot continue. No amount of deference to tradition or hands-off attitude when it comes to the beaches can justify either the mess fires leave behind or the real risk of injuries.

The East Hampton Town Board and town trustees must sit down and work this one out, and fast. Our suggestion is to require that fires be in metal containers for a radius of several hundred feet of all road ends and public and association footpaths, including in Montauk. Residents and visitors alike should not have to spread their towels amid charcoal and morning-after litter. Nor can officials ignore the burns that are sure to increase as the use of the beaches continues to grow.

We love a bonfire as much as anyone, but it simply is time to recognize the reality that they can no longer be built right on the sand in populous places.