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Those trees are only "fire resistant" if the underbrush and twiggy saplings are thinned by logging, road building, or small fires on a regular basis.

You don't start a fire in a fireplace with large logs, right? Gotta start with tinder and kindling to "catch" the logs.

Historic photos of various forests (Yosemite comes to mind) show that the underbrush was NOT allowed to grow in thick like it does today. Fires removed the kindling; native tribes cut down trees (yes they DID, enviros!) for building boats and/or homes. They often DELIBERATELY set fires to improve hunting conditions and cause optimal food production in their area. An oak tree which isn't competing with saplings produces more acorns. Open areas support deer and other wildlife.

It has been an UNUSUAL case for the Black Hills. The French coureurs du bois met many tribes on the Plains who were settled in villages and farmed along the streams and rivers. The Mandan people (see George Catlin's paintings) were a prime example. Unfortunately, the fur trappers brought with them all the assorted Old World diseases for which the natives had NO natural resistance. The village tribes, the Mandan among them, were wiped out by disease.

The disappearance of these tribes was noted by the tribes living near Lakes Michigan and Superior. Several groups of Dakota/Lakota started moving westward to fill in the void, leaving behind their water-oriented culture for a nomadic horse-riding buffalo-hunting way of life. The change was sudden, dramatic, and total. No one now farmed the fertile streambanks; no one harvested the pines or cleared the underbrush in the Hills.

By the way, this all happened less than 250 years ago.