some of the conditions for the massive fir were created when lumber camps lined the shores of lake Huron around 1859. Because the tall,stright trunks of native white pines and the bark from hemlocks were the only commercially useful parts of three, lumberjack carelessy left the unwanted trunks and branches to accmulate on the forest floor. Then,in1871, a fire swept thought the top of the trees in the forests of the Thumb District so quickly that it killed trees without entirely consuming them. As a result, the remaining charred stumps added to the already huge piles of highly flammable kindiling, piles as deep as twelve to fifteen feet.