Abstract:Wildfire is an important natural disturbance affecting terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycling under global change, and the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfire events are continuously reshaping the migration, transformation, and stabilization of post-fire soil organic carbon. This review focuses on the structural and interfacial mechanisms of soil organic carbon stabilization following wildfire disturbance and systematically synthesizes the roles of soil structural change, mineral interfacial reactions, and microbial processes in regulating post-fire carbon pool dynamics. Wildfire first causes rapid losses of surface soil organic carbon through high-temperature combustion and pyrolysis, while also inducing aggregate breakdown, pore structure reorganization, enhanced soil water repellency, and intensified runoff and erosion. These changes alter the exposure of organic carbon, its vertical migration within soil profiles, and its lateral redistribution from hillslopes to depositional zones. At the same time, thermally induced dehydroxylation of clay minerals, crystallization of iron and aluminum oxides, and the formation of pyrogenic mineral phases can reshape mineral surface reactivity and interfacial binding conditions. These effects do not simply increase or decrease mineral protection, but depend on fire severity, mineral composition, heating duration, and soil background conditions, thereby influencing the pathways and efficiency by which pyrogenic dissolved organic matter, pyrogenic carbon, plant-derived organic matter, and microbial necromass enter mineral protection systems. At the biological level, post-fire microbial communities undergo a successional shift from rapid reassembly to metabolic strategy transition. In the early stage, microbial activity promotes rapid turnover of labile carbon, whereas in later stages, enzymatic oxidation, metabolite release, necromass accumulation, and microbe–mineral electron transfer can drive the transformation of organic carbon from labile or mobile forms toward mineral-associated and physically protected states. Overall, the evolution of post-fire soil carbon pools is not governed by any single process but results from the combined effects of structural disturbance, erosion–deposition redistribution, mineral interfacial reconstruction, and microbial transformation. A systematic synthesis of these processes and their coupling relationships is important for improving mechanistic understanding of soil carbon stabilization under wildfire disturbance and for supporting post-fire carbon sink assessment and ecosystem management.