Burn Morels: A Phoenix Rises
This is the story of the relationship between morchella sextelata, a mushroom more commonly known as the burn morel, and forests – and how the morel relies on the natural cycle of fire.
Originally published on UOregon Science Story
By Karl Furlong
Meandering through waist deep foliage, my fellow foragers cut a disorganized mazy path through the forest’s understory, feet kicking at shrubbery, heads tilted groundward, mesh bags dangling from hands and shoulders, the occasional penknife twirling from a loosened grip. The cool morning air has gradually given way, and now the sun is peeking through a partially covered sky.
The looks of intense concentration from only an hour ago wane somewhat. Perhaps the other foragers are just about done.
They have outlasted me. Mushroom hunting is hard work.
We are on the hunt for a very particular mushroom that grows in a very particular place.
We are searching for burn morels.
A few hours earlier we piled into cars in Eugene. With rides organized and equipment arranged, we are on the road and heading east, edging our way out of town. The buildings and sidewalks recede, replaced with trees and fields. For 40-minutes we follow alongside the McKenzie River, passing through the small town of Walterville – we are now in the countryside. A long stretch of green fields and rolling hills gradually takes us past Leaburg, and the broad flat fields give way to the steep hills that slowly hem us in, squeezing us ever closer to the rushing river.
Looking south across the McKenzie, the trees thin and the scars of a burned forest stretch across the landscape. Another mile or two and we are enveloped by blackened trunks, hillsides completely burned, trees charred and toppled, excavation equipment everywhere salvaging timber. We have entered the western edge of the Holiday Farm Fire.
Less than two years ago flames raced down the valley and burned this forest. After the fire subsided, smoke enveloped the area for weeks, choking the towns with an ethereal grayish-orange glow. The forest’s natural canopy mostly obliterated by the intensity of the fire — ash covering every surface for months.
Homes once perched on the river’s edge, nestled neatly between giant fir trees and cottonwoods, are now gone. All that remains are square concrete patches and the occasional chimney.
For miles, the sight of family homes has been replaced by temporary trailers, many draped in blue tarpaulin to keep the winter rains at bay. Traveling by car, you hardly need to slow down to appreciate just how destructive this fire was. The entire community has been stripped bare.
Another mile and we pull to the side of the road. This is where we will forage.
At first blush it’s hard to tell what differentiates this plot of land from any of the others we have passed.
Bound between road and river, the drone of traffic from highway 126 and the slow constant whir of the McKenzie’s current soothes. A light breeze rustles through the remnants of the burned trees, and at times everything disappears but the forest’s lush understory and the promise of morels.
Our guide for the day, Brian Huntamer, has visited this spot a few times before. Huntamer was here a few weeks ago and came away with no morels, but he was convinced the area would fruit in a few weeks’ time, so we are back.
Huntamer is in his late 20’s and wears a long, slightly wild beard that runs counter to his neatly cropped head of hair. Huntamer has been foraging for mushrooms for years, and like so many other foragers out West, he is drawn to the burn morel.
Fire damaged forests like this from the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire provide ideal burn morel habitat
When cooked, the morel is firm and fleshy and has the consistency of meat; the taste is subtle and grabs a hold of the fats and salts it is cooked with. The mushroom is highly prized by chefs. Buying a pound at your local grocer could set you back $80, making forests impacted by wildfire ground zero for foragers of morels.
There is less guess work in finding burn morels than with most other mushrooms — Huntamer said you just need to “do your homework” to find them. It just takes finding the right fire in the right place and being there at the right time.
Huntamer says a big part of what he loves most about mushroom hunting is the community. “The most enjoyable part of the whole process is getting out there with some people and just enjoying life.”
Today he is leading a motley group of foragers. We have been brought together by another member of our group, Skyla Patton, and we are a mix of never-before-ers, once-or-twicers, and experts.
We are mushroom lovers, mushroom agnostics, and mushroom haters. Seemingly, the only things we have in common are a love for the outdoors and for one-another’s company. The seven of us are spending the day strolling through a burned forest telling stories, sharing finds, and breathing in the cool, fresh spring air of a forest that was ravished two years ago and is now full of life.
While the rest of us pull on our boots and sort out our bags, Huntamer is on the move. “Hey, you’re going to want to get a picture of this.” Early signs are promising.
Explaining what he likes most about morel foraging, Huntamer is constantly drawn away from discussing the mushroom and focuses on the forest, captivated by the plethora of life forcing its way into existence.
“The forest floor opens up, and you get all kinds of flowers and fireweed and berry thickets,” said Huntamer. “Birds are eating berries, and small critters on the forest floor come to life.”
Morel found along the McKenzie River valley
Huntamer isn’t alone in his love of the forest coming to life after a fire.
“I think burns are beautiful. They're visually very interesting,” says Trent Blizzard.
Blizzard has been obsessed with the burn morel for years, he’s a writer and professional mushroom hunter and he forages year-round.
Blizzard is a celebrity in the morel hunting community. Thousands of foragers visit his website for advice, and he is a regular speaker at mycological societies throughout the West.
Two years after a fire, Blizzard says the area is “much greener, and life is coming back. It's not one of devastation, the forest is making a comeback.”
When Blizzard first started hunting for burn morels, he realized he could use the burn maps created by the Forestry Service after fires, along with satellite imagery and other public data to identify areas where he could find burn morels. He started to create his own maps and set off into the woods to test them. Soon, word spread that Blizzard was developing accurate maps, and demand quickly grew. Now, he earns a living foraging for mushrooms and selling his maps to people who want to do the same.
Author Trent Blizzard’s Burn Morel maps and his book “A Modern Forager’s Guide to Finding Mushrooms” are popular resources for burn morel fans
Mushrooms are the fruit of mycelia, a root-like mass of interwoven filaments found in the soil. These filaments are so fine they can sometimes be hard to see without a microscope, and they can grow to astonishing sizes. In Oregon’s Malheur Forest, a single mycelium colloquially known as the “Humongous Fungus” is thought to be the largest living organism on earth. It covers 2,385 acres and is estimated to be between 2,000 and 8,500 years old.
The burn morel is unlike any other foraged mushroom. Most mushrooms will bloom seasonally, at the same time and in the same place year-after-year. They stay dormant underfoot and fruit in response to seasonal changes.
Not the burn morel. It is a phoenicoid, meaning it is a mushroom that fruits in response to heat. There are several mushrooms that fall into this category, but the burn morel is the only one you’d want to eat.
The mycelium of the burn morel attaches itself to the root system of conifer trees, and they enter a mutually beneficial relationship exchanging nutrients. The mycelium waits patiently for the right conditions before fruiting — it can sit in the soil for 50 years or more until a forest fire prompts it to bloom.
The burn morel is picky. Not just any fire will do.
If the fire burns too hot it will destroy the nutrients in the soil, and possibly kill the mycelia. A hot fire will also wipe out the canopy, exposing the forest floor to too much sunlight. If the fire is not hot enough, it won’t kill the tree, and then the mycelia won’t be able to harvest the nutrients from the wood. If it doesn’t snow enough the winter after the fire, the mycelia won’t get the water it needs, and if the spring is too damp and cool, the mycelia won’t get the sunshine it needs. South and west-facing slopes are good places to look, as long as the drainage is good. And the proximity to a river can be helpful as well. In addition, the mycelia need just the right types of conifer in the right location. The burn morel prefers mixed forests of fir and spruce, and these morels are only found in North America.
A variety of morels found in a section of the McKenzie River valley burned by the Holiday Farm Fire
As I rest on the downed trunk of a burned cottonwood, I can feel that the bark’s charcoal has worked its way into my pants, my boots, my backpack, my hands, and my sandwich. My face is streaked black like a coal miner’s. Morel hunting in a burned forest is dirty work.
Massive, toppled conifers lie scattered around the forest. Flora takes up the nutrients released to the soil by the fire. Walking through these woods demands attention. Each step requires consideration, lest a boot get tangled in the vines of a blackberry bush, or worse, we walk past an inconspicuous morel, our precious bounty.
Slowly working away at my sandwich, I keep one eye on my friends. I’m tracking where they forage so I don’t waste time when I get back on my feet.
One day earlier, standing in a local market, I scour the shelves for a knife. One of two pieces of equipment I would need for the day, the other being a bag to carry my spoils. I settle on a small forager’s knife from Opinel – its beautifully forged stainless steel blade folds nicely into a polished beechwood handle. Sharp enough to whittle away at a stick, the knife forgoes the standard speared point in favor of a rounded end – I could still slice a finger, but I would avoid a stabbing incident.
Mushroom foraging knife
Mushrooms come in all shapes and sizes, but the morel stands out as having a most peculiar appearance. The cap of the morel is a warren of crenulations and corrugations. From a distance it looks as though it has succumbed to the same flames as the downed logs that surround it. But moving closer the delicate ridges and fine colors come into view. Some morels look like dried figs, and others look like small chunks of ocean coral – misplaced and left on the forest floor.
The contrast between the morel’s cap and stem is stark. While the cap is multicolored and filled with ridges and divots, the stem is beautiful, smooth, and light-colored. Ranging from ivory to beige, it reaches from the forest floor and meets the cap in a fluid line. The transition from stem to cap is unlike other mushrooms. It is connected: the cap will not separate with a simple twist of the wrist.
There are hundreds of varieties of morels found in Asia, Europe, and North America. But there are only five varieties of burn morel, and they are only found in Western North America. Scientists know little about the burn morel. What is the exact nature of the relationship it has with the trees in these forests? Why only in North America? What aspects of the forest fire prompts the morel to fruit?
Larry Evans is a mycologist, a scientist who specializes in fungi, and he’s been working with burn morels for decades. He thinks our relationship with the forest is skewed by what we see. We associate a healthy forest with an abundance of trees. But too often we aren’t paying attention to what we’re standing on.
Evans doesn’t dispute that a healthy canopy is important, but he’s concerned we don’t spend enough time looking down.
“Fifty-one percent of the protoplasm in a forest ecosystem is below the ground level,” said Evans. “Most of it is represented in fungal and other biomass.”
The morel forms a mycorrhizal relationship with trees and plants. A mycorrhizal relationship is one where the tree and the fungi enter a mutually beneficial relationship in which they share nutrients.
Brian Huntamer with a burn morel found along a section of the McKenzie River recovering from the 2020 Holiday Farm Fire
This mycorrhizal relationship connects trees, allowing them to communicate and share the nutrients produced by the fungi. This relationship, known as the wood wide web, is little understood and the focus of much research at present.
Evans explains that the forests and the mycelia have developed to rely on fire.
“Out of 400 species of ascomycota [a group of fungus that includes the morel] I see 120 or 130 that only go through a reproductive sexual phase after a forest fire,” said Evans.
The forest underfoot is highly dependent on this cycle of fire and regeneration. The leaves, needles, branches, trees, and decomposing animals that are strewn across the forest floor all add nutrients into the soil and contribute to the health of the forest, as does the natural and continual presence of fire.
On the north bank of the McKenzie River walking through this healing forest, the darkened canopy above us gives way to a verdant, dense, green, and brown forest floor. Saplings have taken hold, and the deep grass makes finding burn morels difficult. I know they are clustered around the roots of burned conifers, but those conifers have toppled, and their roots are now buried under a thick mat of foliage.
Back on my feet and ready to rejoin the search, I wind my way through the dizzying amount of life forcing its way skyward from the forest floor. There is no straight path; saplings, shrubs, vines, blackberry bushes and scattered victims of the forest fire block my way. I’m just able to see the bobbing heads of my team. In another year it will be an impossible task.
A morel, freshly picked from the McKenzie River Valley.
