FIRE MORELS THIS AUTUMN

Fire morels are not at all the same species as those normally harvested in the spring. They fruit four months after a forest fire. So we should see them appear during the fall, mainly in jack pine forests. They plunder the important reserves of food contained in the root system of the trees; after four months of developing their mycelia, they have accumulated enough energy to bear fruitbodies. In 1996, the great fire east of Lebel-sur-Quévillon took place in mid-August and the morels fructified the second week of July the following year. In the great fire that took place in the spring of 1986 east of Vancouver, the morels fructified in September of the same year. However, fire morels must be present in the soil in these places. If the organic soil has burned deep, there will be no morels.

In the boreal forest, under natural conditions, fires occur on average every 80 years; so fire morels also only bear fruit after 80 years.