We identified 687 fire events representing 181 separate fire years spanned from 1479 to 1900 AD. For this period, the mean fire interval for the entire VCNP is 2.33 years/fire. Preliminary results confirm the pre-1900 historic occurrence of high frequency, low-severity surface fires over multiple centuries. In some fire years, such as 1748 and 1752, synchronous fires burned across the grasslands and into the surrounding forests over the majority of the VCNP (greater than 35% of total sites burning). These large fires were typically occurring at 10.5 year intervals on average. However, fires in other years burned in a relatively small proportion of total sites (between 10 and 35% of total sites), creating asynchronous burn patches throughout the VCNP. The smaller, patchier fires were typically occurring at 6 year intervals on average. One hypothesis for widespread synchronous fires is the suggestion of top-down climate control of fire occurrence in years with regional drought conditions, whereas asynchronous fires indicate stronger bottom-up control driven by fuels, fuel moisture, short-term weather conditions, topography and fire spread. The relative influence of top-down and bottom-up regulation of fire regimes has important implications for forest policy and management.