As with a nearby watershedarea, once the landowners no longer had any economic incentive to keep squatters out, the homesteaders moved in and built homes by the hundreds.
Globally, the report says, watershed payments have rehabilitated 117 million hectares of countryside, a land area about as big as the entire country of South Africa.
Crews also cleared out campgrounds and closed trailheads in the area as they worked to prevent the fire from moving toward the capital city's watershed and more populated areas.