LI Eateries Raise $8.5K For Heroes Who Tackled Westhampton Brush Fires

LONG ISLAND, NY — Long Island came together with two words for the heroes who battled the raging Westhampton brush fires in March: "Thank you."

Long Island eateries teamed up for a fundraiser to give back: Alyssa Guidice, known to many as the administrator of the Dine-LI Facebook page, joined with Town Of Islip Councilman and founder of the Bay Shore restaurant committee Mike McElwee, as well as Joshua Soto of @firefoodsonly, for the "LI Wings It Forward" event.

Known for the LI Pizza Strong fundraisers, Guidice said the "LI Wings It Forward" event took place on Monday, April 7.

This week, Guidice posted a message on Facebook stating: "With the help of 70 Long Island eateries, we are happy to announce that 'Long Island Wings It Forward' raised $8,500 for the 84 fire and EMS departments who helped put out the brush fires on the East End of Long Island. We appreciate everyone who participated, ate wings — and made additional donations."

Two months after the fierce brush fires burned in Westhampton, the cause of the blaze is "undetermined" — despite initial speculation that the incident may have started with s'mores.

Southampton Town Public Safety & Emergency Management Administrator Ryan Murphy told Patch recently: "Reports are still being finalized, but the preliminary findings are that the cause of the fire is 'undetermined' at this time. There are multiple possibilities and factors that were unable to be conclusively ruled out during the investigation and analysis of findings."

He added: "Due to the inability to rule out certain things, there are multiple possibilities that could exist. Some may be more or less likely than others, but without being able to narrow down to one cause, we are obligated to issue an 'undetermined' cause at this time."

When asked about the s'mores explanation — that a family making s'mores in their backyard may have possibly sparked the blaze — Murphy said: "The s'mores theory was one of the included theories examined by us, but we did not find that it was conclusively the cause. There are actually findings that somewhat work against the s'mores theory."

Other things considered, Murphy said, were a "heat source from a vehicle on the side of the road in an area; refraction of light to cause heating of grassy material; nefarious activities, etc. We were able to discount certain theories and others were unable to be ruled out."

Murphy concluded: "I think one general statement that can be made is that the s'mores theory that was first mentioned publicly seems to indicate that there was one fire location as the source for all of the other locations. Our findings do not support that — and seem to indicate more than one fire. Separate fires."

But no matter what the cause, the fires sparked a sea of gratitude across Long Island for the selfless volunteers who raced to help.

"Let’s come together as a community to give back to our local heroes!" Guidice said, before the event.

Speaking with Patch, Guidice said McElwee and the restaurant committee had been "reaching out, trying to come up with a way to do a fundraiser for a while, but nothing really came to fruition. Mike approached me and said he wanted to do something for the departments that helped with the fires — and, after going back and forth, we came up with the idea to do a chicken wing fundraiser on National Beer Day with 20 percent of the sales to go toward this cause. We decided to do this because most major fundraising efforts are for bad things — and we just wanted to do one that is for thanks and appreciation."

Reflecting on the heroes who faced cold temperatures and fierce winds on the Saturday of the fires, Guidice said: "These men and women who put their lives on the line for us are truly, truly special people. They are people who deserve to be honored, appreciated and thanked for all they do."

Her efforts to give back have imparted forever life lessons, Guidice said.

"Being a part of these large-scale fundraisers, it tells me that people really do care, and they want to help a cause. Especially when we make these fundraisers super easy and fun! Everyone has to eat, right? Why not support a local business and a good cause at the same time?"