Fire in Central European Ecosystems - a very interesting conference

Last week, the first Central European fire ecology conference, entitled 'Fire in Central European Ecosystems', was held in Decin, Czech Republic. The conference presentations dealt with the consequences of forest and grassland fires, post-fire regeneration, and the nature conservation opportunities of prescribed burning. The event was prompted by a huge forest fire in Bohemian Switzerland National Park in July 2022, which burned down 1,200 hectares of land. Many presentations focused on post-fire regeneration and the responses of individual groups of organisms, and we were able to see the burned areas for ourselves during a field trip. It was a very interesting and informative conference with excellent presentations — it was great to see that more and more people are working on fire ecology in Central Europe as well!

We presented two presentations at the conference:

Deák, B., Süveges, K., Gőri, Sz., Kapocsi, I., Valkó, O. (2025): The legacy of wildfires: Grassland vegetation recovery in burned grasslands and differently managed firebreaks.

Valkó, O, Stoof, C, Akala, T, Arianoutsou, M, Arsava, K, Ascoli, D, Bengtsson, J, Castro, R, Engelbrecht, J, Fra Paleo, U, Granström, A, Ibisch, P, Kalabokidis, K, Kandárová, H, Marinšek, A, Knottnerus, A, Metallinou, M, Müller, M, Oliviera, T, Pereira, J, Plieninger, T, Palaiologou, P, Pulido Diaz, J, Saražin, J, Stoyanov, T, Thacker, FN, van der Werf, G, Zerefos, C., Elmqvist, T. (2025): Living with Fire: Policy Recommendations from the EASAC Report on Changing Wildfires in Europe. (keynote talk)

Many thanks to the organizers for the wonderful conference and excursion!

Birch trees grow higher than three metres in some of the areas burned in 2022.

Burned mushroom.

Life has found a way to thrive in the scorched area.

The weather was a bit rainy during the field program ...

The Conference was held at the beautiful Decin castle.

The way up to the castle.

View from the castle to the brewery.

The lecture room was also very nice.