Fire history in a forested, 550 ha second-order basin (basin P6) of the Caribou-Poker Creeks Research Watershed near Fairbanks, Alaska, was reconstructed from 21 replicated fire scars on black spruce trees and age structures of fire post-fire stands of black spruce and paper birch. Forest vegetation in the research watershed is representative of the interior Alaskan taiga with black spruce common on permafrost-underlain north-facing slopes, and stands of hardwoods and spruce common dominating warmer, south-facing slopes. Seventeen percent (90 ha) of the P6 basin was burned by stand-initiating fires since ca. 1810, although less severe fires scarred trees in the basin in 1924, 1935, and 1964. The mean areally adjusted stand age in the basin is 167 yr. The timing of fires in the P6 basin and of three other fires documented in the 10,000 ha research watershed is highly correlated with periods of mineral prospecting adjacent to the watershed.