Wildfire activity is increasing with anthropogenic climate change, yet the impacts on freshwater ecosystems remains poorly understood. Existing research shows that fires alter freshwater systems through increased ash deposition and the mobilization of nutrients, contaminants, and organic matter, while longer term changes in catchment vegetation, soils, and erosion further influence light penetration, nutrient availability, pH, and within lake processes. Fire–freshwater interactions operate across multiple temporal scales; therefore, both short term responses and long-term trends are needed to fully understand ecosystem change. However, datasets spanning pre- and post-fire activity are rare. The Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) in northwestern Ontario provides the opportunity to address this shortfall, with >50 years of high-resolution monitoring data from sites that have experienced repeated catchment scale fires. Coupling these datasets with palaeoecological approaches allows the reconstruction of fire activity, catchment processes, and lake ecosystem responses over short and long temporal scales. Here we compare a multiproxy palaeoecological record from Lake 383 of charcoal, pollen, X-ray fluorescence, carbon/nitrogen, and diatoms to the ELA monitoring data. Our preliminary results show elevated fire activity from 1600–1800 CE, while vegetation remained relatively stable until ~1800 CE before shifting toward a more mixed forest with changes in fire activity and land-use practices. Diatom assemblages reveal climate driven changes during the Little Ice Age followed by increased nutrient availability and aquatic productivity associated with a rise in fire activity. These findings suggest that increasing wildfire activity may enhance nutrient enrichment and productivity in freshwater systems through catchment scale changes.