Hurricane and Storm Risk in Seaside Park, New Jersey
Seaside Park is a 0.81-square-mile borough (0.66 square miles of land, 0.16 square miles of water) on the Barnegat Peninsula, a barrier island separating Barnegat Bay from the open Atlantic Ocean, directly adjacent to Seaside Heights to its north. Wikipedia itself frames Seaside Park as "The Family Resort," the deliberately quieter counterpart to Seaside Heights' commercial-amusement identity, and that contrast matters for storm and disaster history too: while Seaside Heights' own defining story is Hurricane Sandy and the Star Jet coaster falling into the ocean, Seaside Park's own defining disaster is a fire, not a storm directly, though the fire's cause traces straight back to Sandy. This page does not reuse Long Beach Island's Ship Bottom, Surf City, Harvey Cedars, or Barnegat Light storm-damage figures, because those towns sit on a separate barrier island with their own separately reported numbers. What is confirmed, and what makes Seaside Park's own history genuinely distinct from every other market on this site including Seaside Heights next door, is that the September 12, 2013 boardwalk fire began on Seaside Park's own end of the boardwalk, not Seaside Heights'.
This Site's Twentieth New Jersey Market, and the True Origin Point of the 2013 Fire
Seaside Park is this site's twentieth New Jersey market, built immediately after and adjacent to Seaside Heights as part of the same Central Jersey Shore stretch. Its footprint is 0.81 total square miles, split between 0.66 square miles of land and 0.16 square miles of water, on the Barnegat Peninsula between Barnegat Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. That is a different, smaller footprint than Seaside Heights, and this page is built to not borrow Seaside Heights' Sandy-and-Star-Jet story, or any Long Beach Island market's storm-damage percentage, as if it belonged to Seaside Park.
The distinction that matters most for a prospective buyer is this: the real September 12, 2013 boardwalk fire, sometimes assumed to be a Seaside Heights story because it also burned into that town's Funtown Pier, actually began on Seaside Park's own end of the shared boardwalk. The building where the fire started, the businesses it destroyed, and the firefighting response described below all belong to Seaside Park's own documented history, not a secondhand account of a neighboring town's disaster.
The 1955 Freeman's Fire and the 1962 Ash Wednesday Nor'easter
Long before 2013, Seaside Park had already been through two other disasters tied to its boardwalk. On June 9, 1955, winds estimated at 50 miles per hour spread a blaze known as the Freeman's Fire that destroyed 85 buildings across the boardwalk and pier area, with an estimated $4 million in damage. That fire affected both Seaside Park and Seaside Heights together; it was not exclusively one town's event, and this page does not claim it as one.
Less than seven years later, on March 8, 1962, the nor'easter remembered as the Ash Wednesday Storm destroyed a large section of Seaside Park's borough boardwalk. Between a major fire in 1955 and a major storm in 1962, the borough had already rebuilt its boardwalk more than once before Hurricane Sandy and the 2013 fire arrived decades later.
September 12, 2013: The Fire That Began Under Kohr's Frozen Custard
The fire is believed to have started around 2:05 p.m. EDT on September 12, 2013, originating beneath a building on the boardwalk that housed Kohr's Frozen Custard and Biscayne Candies. The cause was electrical wiring under the boardwalk and subfloor that had been compromised by Hurricane Sandy floodwaters roughly ten and a half months earlier, on October 29, 2012. In other words, Sandy did not just flood Seaside Park directly; it also left behind compromised wiring that ignited a separate, later disaster once conditions were right.
The fire grew into a ten-alarm blaze that destroyed the Funtown Pier amusement park and more than 50 businesses along the boardwalk, including some that had only recently been rebuilt after Sandy itself. That detail is the sharpest illustration of the storm-to-fire chain in Seaside Park's history: buildings that had survived Sandy's floodwaters and been restored were burned down less than a year later by a fire that Sandy's floodwaters had quietly set in motion.
Fighting a Ten-Alarm Fire: 400 Firefighters, a Water Cannon, and Barnegat Bay
More than 400 firefighters from multiple counties responded to fight the blaze. Normal firefighting was hampered because Sandy-damaged water-supply pipes could not deliver enough water through the usual system, so crews used a water cannon system and drew water directly from Barnegat Bay to keep fighting the fire.
To stop the fire from spreading further along the boardwalk, firefighters demolished roughly 25 feet of boardwalk at Lincoln Avenue to create a firebreak. That deliberate demolition, combined with the water-cannon effort and the bay water draw, brought the fire under control by approximately 7:45 p.m. EDT, roughly five and a half hours after it began.
After the Fire: $4.7 Million in Cleanup, and a Pier That Never Came Back
Total cleanup and demolition costs from the fire were reported at $4.7 million. No single confirmed overall property-damage total beyond that cleanup and demolition figure was found during research for this page, and none is invented here; a prospective buyer should treat $4.7 million as the cleanup cost, not as a stand-in for total losses across more than 50 destroyed businesses and an amusement pier. Despite the scale of the damage, the boardwalk itself reopened for summer 2014.
Funtown Pier did not return. Plans to rebuild the amusement pier were scrapped in July 2016, after planning-board height restrictions could not be reconciled with the rebuild proposal. Nearly three years after the fire, the pier's absence became permanent by planning decision rather than by any further disaster.
Adding It Up: What Is Confirmed, and What We Will Not Invent
What is confirmed here: Seaside Park sits on a 0.81-square-mile stretch of the Barnegat Peninsula between Barnegat Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; the borough boardwalk was destroyed in part by the 1955 Freeman's Fire and the March 8, 1962 Ash Wednesday nor'easter; and the September 12, 2013 fire began on Seaside Park's own end of the boardwalk beneath Kohr's Frozen Custard and Biscayne Candies, caused by Sandy-compromised wiring, fought by more than 400 firefighters using a water cannon and Barnegat Bay water after a Lincoln Avenue firebreak, controlled by about 7:45 p.m. EDT, with $4.7 million in reported cleanup and demolition costs, a reopened boardwalk in 2014, and a Funtown Pier rebuild scrapped in July 2016.
What we could not find, and will not invent: a single combined property-damage dollar total for the 2013 fire beyond the $4.7 million cleanup figure, a current flood-insurance premium, and a current FEMA flood-zone designation for any specific address. Get a current flood-zone determination from FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, a current flood and wind insurance quote from a licensed New Jersey agent, and current storm-mitigation requirements from the Borough of Seaside Park before making any purchase decision. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice.
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Get a Free Agent Referral →Independent research. No ads. No sponsored listings. Data drawn from research on Seaside Park, New Jersey, this site's twentieth New Jersey market: a total area of 0.81 square miles (0.66 square miles land, 0.16 square miles water) on the Barnegat Peninsula, a barrier island separating Barnegat Bay from the Atlantic Ocean, immediately adjacent to Seaside Heights; the June 9, 1955 "Freeman's Fire," in which winds estimated at 50 miles per hour spread a blaze destroying 85 buildings across the boardwalk and pier area with an estimated $4 million in damage, affecting both Seaside Park and Seaside Heights; the March 8, 1962 Ash Wednesday nor'easter, which destroyed a large section of the borough's boardwalk; and the September 12, 2013 ten-alarm fire, believed to have started around 2:05 p.m. EDT, originating beneath a boardwalk building housing Kohr's Frozen Custard and Biscayne Candies, caused by electrical wiring under the boardwalk and subfloor compromised by Hurricane Sandy floodwaters, which destroyed the Funtown Pier amusement park and more than 50 businesses including some recently rebuilt after Sandy, was fought by more than 400 firefighters from multiple counties using a water cannon system and water drawn from Barnegat Bay after Sandy-damaged water-supply pipes hampered normal firefighting, involved the demolition of roughly 25 feet of boardwalk at Lincoln Avenue as a firebreak, was brought under control by about 7:45 p.m. EDT, produced $4.7 million in reported cleanup and demolition costs with no single confirmed overall property-damage total, was followed by the boardwalk reopening for summer 2014, and ended with Funtown Pier's planned rebuild scrapped in July 2016 due to planning-board height restrictions. This page is deliberately built to attribute the 2013 fire's true point of origin to Seaside Park's own end of the shared boardwalk, distinct from neighboring Seaside Heights, whose own defining storm story is Hurricane Sandy and the Star Jet coaster, and distinct from Long Beach Island's Ship Bottom, Surf City, Harvey Cedars, and Barnegat Light, a separate barrier island with its own independently reported storm-damage figures. A single combined property-damage dollar total for the 2013 fire beyond the $4.7 million cleanup figure, a current flood-insurance premium, and a current FEMA flood-zone designation for any specific address were not independently confirmed this research pass and are disclosed as gaps rather than invented. Confirm current flood-zone status with FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, current insurance costs with a licensed New Jersey agent, and current storm-mitigation rules with the Borough of Seaside Park before making any purchase decision. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, insurance, or financial advice.