(3 - 1 - Long-Term Change - Western FI Map: Part of the Coastal Change at Fire Island geo-narrative)Fire Island is a 31 mile long barrier island that is centrally located on the southern shore of Long Island, New York. The island is comprised of Fire Island National Seashore (including several federal wilderness tracts), NY state and county parks, and developed communities. The U.S. Geological Survey has been conducting research in the offshore, nearshore, and barrier island systems at Fire Island for more than two decades to better understand drivers of coastal change and evolution. This Story Map features research that is being used to predict how beaches change in response to storms and how they may subsequently recover in the year following a storm event. Himmelstoss, E.A., Kratzmann, M., Hapke, C., Thieler, E.R., and List, J., 2010, The National Assessment of Shoreline Change: A GIS Compilation of Vector Shorelines and Associated Shoreline Change Data for the New England and Mid-Atlantic Coasts: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2010-1119, available at https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1119/

Census Current (2022) Legal and Statistical Entities Web Map Service; January 1, 2022 vintage.

Incorporated Places are those reported to the Census Bureau as legally in existence as of the latest Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS), under the laws of their respective states. An incorporated place is established to provide governmental functions for a concentration of people as opposed to a minor civil division, which generally is created to provide services or administer an area without regard, necessarily, to population. Places always are within a single state or equivalent entity, but may extend across county and county subdivision boundaries. An incorporated place usually is a city, town, village, or borough but can have other legal descriptions. For Census Bureau data tabulation and presentation purposes, incorporated places exclude:

1) The boroughs in Alaska (treated as statistical equivalents of counties).

2) Towns in the New England states, New York, and Wisconsin (treated as MCDs).

3) The boroughs in New York (treated as MCDs).