ABOVE: A wildfire swept through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in late 2016.
© KAREN HUGHES
After the Chimney Tops 2 Wildfire charred 11,000 acres of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the North Carolina–Tennessee state line in November 2016, rangers closed affected trails to visitors. Mycologists Andy N. Miller and Karen Hughes and their teams were an exception. Toting hard hats and sample collection kits, these scientists jumped at the opportunity to track down their research subjects: pyrophilous (“fire-loving”) fungi, which produce mushrooms prolifically after forest fires and then disappear as the forest recovers.
The level of destruction was incredible. Everything I touched left black carbon on my hands.
The severely burned areas of the Smokies were almost completely lifeless two months after the blaze, when the group first ventured into the affected zone. “The level of destruction was incredible,” recounts Hughes, a researcher at the University ...
