Abstract. The mid-Pliocene is a valuable time interval for understanding the mechanisms that determine equilibrium climate at current CO2 concentrations. One intriguing, but not fully understood, feature of the early to mid-Pliocene climate is the amplified arctic temperature response. Current models underestimate the degree of warming in the Pliocene Arctic and validation of proposed feedbacks is limited by scarce terrestrial records of climate and environment, as well as discrepancies 20 in current CO2 proxy reconstructions. Here we reconstruct the CO2 and summer temperature from a re-dated 3.9 +1.5/-0.5 Ma sub-fossil fen-peat deposit on west-central Ellesmere Island, Canada, and investigate fire as a potential feedback to Arctic amplification of warming during the mid-Pliocene.Average CO2 was determined using isotope ratios of mosses to be 440 ± 50 ppm. The estimate for average mean summer temperature is 15.4±0.8°C using specific bacterial membrane lipids, i.e. branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers. Macro-25 charcoal was present in all samples from this Pliocene section with notably higher charcoal concentration in the upper part of the sequence. This change in charcoal was synchronous with a change in vegetation that saw fire promoting taxa increase in abundance. Paleovegetation reconstructions are consistent with warm summer temperatures, relatively low summer precipitation and an incidence of fire comparable to fire adapted boreal forests of North America, or potentially central Siberia.To our knowledge, this study represents the furthest northern evidence of fire during the Pliocene and highlights the important 30 role of forest fire in the ecology and climatic processes of the Pliocene High Arctic. The results provide evidence that terrestrial fossil localities in the Pliocene High Arctic were probably formed during warm intervals that coincided with relatively high CO2 concentrations that supported productive biotic communities. This study indicates that interactions between concentrations were only ~30 ppm higher than modern.