The effect of fire intensity on understory vegetation on serri stands of ponderosa pine are presented. Vegetational recovery for 2 burn intensities and unburned sites were compared. The results suggest a change in the understory dominance structure foilowhrg underburning is related to the amount of duff consumed by the fire and independent of fire line intensity and flame length. A significantly greater proportion of duff was removed on high fire intensity sites (80%) than on low intensity sites (40%). However, the variation in fire line intensity was great, with some overlap. Fire line intensity ranged from 30 to 3,034 kcai/m-s on high intensity sites and from 25 to 194 kcai/m-s on low intensity sites. Flame length ranged from 0.1 to 1.7 m on both high and low intensity sites. Graminoid canopy coverage was lowest on high intensity sites. The reduction was apparently the result of prolonged smoldering of the duff layer. There was no significant difference in coverage among treatments for shrubs or forbs. A significant change in frequency among treatments was noted for 11 of 54 species sampled.
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