{"id":243599,"date":"2026-04-16T07:15:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T11:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=243599"},"modified":"2026-04-23T16:21:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T20:21:24","slug":"from-flames-to-fungi-prescribed-burns-and-soil-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/04\/from-flames-to-fungi-prescribed-burns-and-soil-restoration\/","title":{"rendered":"From Flames to Fungi: Prescribed Burns and Soil Restoration"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fall of 2024, Connecticut saw a record 605 wildfires, which burned more than 500 acres and prompted a statewide emergency declaration, a temporary burn ban, and multi\u2011agency firefighting support. Over the past several years, the state has faced a steady rise in brush fires, fueled by declining forest health and a warming climate that has brought more frequent drought conditions and higher temperatures. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Connecticut prepares for a future\u00a0where these types of fires become the norm,\u00a0UConn alum\u00a0Zachary Placzek \u201925 (CAHNR) is helping researchers in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources\u00a0(CAHNR)\u00a0and members of the UConn Fire Department (UCFD) practice\u00a0implementing\u00a0prescribed burning\u00a0to manage forest safety\u00a0and restore habitat.\u00a0The team is also conducting\u00a0cutting-edge\u00a0research to see\u00a0how this method affects soil health, exploring microbial treatments to improve and influence ecosystem regrowth.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prescribed burning, also known as controlled burning, reduces fuels by igniting burnable vegetation under specific conditions\u00a0to\u00a0lower the risk of future wildfires. While this practice is common in the western U.S.,\u00a0<\/span>Connecticut\u2019s climate, ecosystems, and fire regime differ<\/span><\/a>\u00a0significantly\u00a0thereby\u00a0reducing the familiarity of this successful land management tool.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Placzek has experience fighting fires, working as a wildland firefighter with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP). In July 2024, he responded to wildfires in Oregon and Washington to assist in fighting wildfires as part of the Connecticut Interstate Fire Crew, an experience that deepened his interest in how fire affects forests from the ground up.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To learn more about what happens in the ground with nutrient cycling and organic decomposition after a fire at a microscopic level, Placzek is working with Mia Maltz, assistant professor of microbial ecology and soil health in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture. Their research is focused on two types of New England landscapes. One in a wooded area of the UConn Forest and the other on an agricultural plot at the department\u2019s Plant Science Research and Education Farm. They were the first prescribed burns ever recorded at UConn Storrs and overseen by the UCFD. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you do a prescribed fire, you have the power to test what was going on in the [microbial] community before the fire because you know the\u00a0when the burn\u00a0is going to happen,\u201d says Placzek. \u201cFire drastically reduces the diversity of fungi initially. They take a long time to be restored, so one of the things we wanted to look at was inoculating with certain fungi post\u2011fire to understand the degree to which these microbes can promote plant performance.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the UConn Forest<\/a>, dense woody debris left behind by pests like the emerald ash borer created heavy fuel loads. The Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, which manages the 2,100-acre forest, worked with Farm Services in the Department of Animal Science, to collect material for a jackpot burn, a method that stacks bulky concentrations of dead branches and logs into piles. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to reducing hazardous fuels,\u00a0this approach\u00a0prepared the area for future restoration efforts, including reintroducing chestnut trees\u00a0that have\u00a0long since\u00a0disappeared\u00a0due to a devastating blight that significantly reduced the species a hundred years ago.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe inoculated the UConn Forest site with soil that we collected from a disease\u2011resistant chestnut orchard to see if the microbes present there would assist long\u2011term growth,\u201d Placzek says. \u201cThe diversity of fungi rose dramatically with the inoculation. When the trees are planted,\u00a0we\u2019ll\u00a0know more about how effective it is.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Placzek also\u00a0observed\u00a0meaningful chemical changes in the inoculated soil following the burn, including an increase in its cation exchange capacity (CEC), an important measure of soil\u00a0indicating\u00a0its ability to store and release important nutrients for root and plant development.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw the CEC was much higher in the inoculated burn sites with the soil\u00a0retaining\u00a0valuable nutrients including potassium, magnesium, and calcium. There was also a buildup of aluminum in the soil, which suggests that certain microbes\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0present to cycle it,\u00a0perhaps something\u00a0the fire or\u00a0additional\u00a0inoculations could reintroduce.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the research farm site, lighter, shrubbier vegetation and invasive species from retired research plots were burned. The result was a cooler and patchier burn creating ideal conditions for Placzek to study how microbial communities respond when fire moves across the landscape in uneven patterns. This spring, he is applying new inoculations to examine how soils with long agricultural histories respond to microbial restoration.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As with the UConn Forest burn, the controlled fire at the research farm provided immediate benefits with a convenient way to destroy invasive species and valuable opportunities for firefighters to practice and train using prescribed burn methods.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an environmentally responsible way to properly dispose of invasive plants, as there was a lot of oriental bittersweet in the material,\u201d says Travis Clark, research farm manager, \u201cand one of the best ways to kill the seed is to burn it.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese burns help build the skill set\u00a0our firefighters have with utilizing concepts and principles\u00a0which,\u00a0as structural firefighters,\u00a0they don\u2019t always get a chance to\u00a0practice\u00a0or implement, all\u00a0the\u00a0while reducing future fire risk,\u201d says UCFD Chief Christopher Renshaw \u201901 (CAHNR), \u201907\u00a0MS. \u201cI\u00a0foresee an opportunity where we invite other\u00a0fire departments\u00a0if we continue to do this on a regular basis, to share this\u00a0training,\u00a0education,\u00a0and research\u00a0with a broader\u00a0audience.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Placzek\u2019s work continues what is a growing partnership between CAHNR and the UCFD to tackle local brush fire risk. UConn Extension and the UCFD recently teamed up on a tool to visualize and educate planners, firefighters, and residents in Connecticut to aid in preparing for future wildfires.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is to generate new knowledge that may guide future forest restoration, improve wildfire preparedness, and support healthier, more resilient ecosystems throughout New England,\u201d says Placzek.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This work relates to CAHNR\u2019s Strategic Vision area focused on\u00a0<\/em>Fostering Sustainable Landscapes at the Urban-Rural Interface<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0<\/em>UConn CAHNR<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on social media<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plant science researchers and the UConn Fire Department are using prescribed burns to mitigate brush fires and study the role of microbes in soil recovery to generate new insights to help Connecticut manage rising wildfire risk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":243603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,2224,1715,2650,2303,2076,2709,2461,2712,2235,2198,2225,70],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2153],"class_list":["post-243599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-cahnr","category-community-impact","category-blue-impact","category-plant-science-landscape-architecture","category-research","category-security","category-staff","category-student-success","category-today-homepage","category-tolland-county","category-uconn-storrs","category-video","post_format-post-format-video"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 22:01:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243599"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244082,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243599\/revisions\/244082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/243603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243599"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=243599"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=243599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}