Fossil charcoal provides a record of significant changes in the importance of fire in the Central Sierra Nevada over the past 15,000 years. Changes in fire regime appear to be related to regional shifts in climate. During the late Pleistocene (ca. 12.5-10 ka), minimal sedimentary charcoal influx is correlated with fossil pollen and macrofossil indicators of a moist climate, probably with deeper spring snowpack than the present. In the early Holocene (10-7 ka), macrofossils indicate a shift from white and lodgepole pines to more xeric ponderosa pine-dominated forest. Charcoal influx climbs rapidly to maximum values in this zone, in conjunction with increases in fir, oak, and dwarf mistletoe pollen, along with bracken fern spores. Charcoal declines to modem values between about 7-3 ka, by which time the modem mixed conifer forest became established. Changes in the abundance of bracken, dwarf mistletoe, oak and ponderosa pine can be strongly correlated with charcoal influx. The late-Pleistocene interval of minimum charcoal influx is a period in which dense forest surrounded the lake, indicating that fire frequency was not directly a function of fuel availability. Increasing summer drought in the early Holocene made tire an important factor in vegetation change. The zone of rapid increase in charcoal abundance, beginning 10,000 years ago, is associated with abrupt changes in vegetation, including the first appearance of ponderosa pines and firs following deglaciation.