Alaska has a history of booms -- fur, gold, oil. This summer could see another -- a 'shroom boom. Morel mushrooms, treasured for French cooking, thrive on land a year after it's disturbed by forest fires. Alaska set records in scorched earth last year.

More than 6.5 million acres burned, mostly in Alaska's Interior, the vast middle swath between the Brooks Range in the north and the Alaska Range in the south. With the right moisture and temperatures, Alaska could witness a morel gold rush in late spring.

"That is what we're hoping on," said Jay Moore of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. "It really depends on environmental factors." The extension service is putting on workshops in rural communities, showing how to pick, dry and market morels, which when dried can command prices of hundreds of dollars per pound. The service hopes to create a cottage industry in cash-poor places where people last year were smothered with smoke and soot.

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