Europeans colonized the area in the mid-1800s and began clear-cutting trees to supply nearby towns and the Comstock Lode mines with lumber.
Researchers estimate that more than 60% of the basin had been stripped by the turn of the century. The trees grew back at roughly the same height, with their comparatively young age and lack of diversity leaving them more vulnerable to damaging fire.
Around the same time, the rise of steam-powered logging equipment, lumber mills, and railroads increased the potential for fires to ignite.
Newspaper accounts in the 1880s told of entire towns being destroyed. Tahoe City, which then consisted of about 50 houses, two hotels, and some stores, burned down in 1894, according to The Los Angeles Times’ archives.
Another fire in 1898 burned from the Rubicon area in the mountains to the shore of the lake, destroying “a vast amount of valuable timber,” the archives state.
