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Fire creates habitats for many animals but changes in fire activity threaten species worldwide. While conservation assessments routinely identify fire as a threat to lizards and snakes, the processes underlying fire‐driven population declines have received less attention. Assessing the effects of fire on demographic processes – survival, reproduction and movement – provides a means to identify mechanisms of population declines and forecast population changes. Here, we synthesize how inappropriate fire regimes contribute to declines of animal populations, using threatened Australian squamates as a case study.

We applied a demographic framework in a systematic review to identify fire characteristics and interacting threats associated with population declines in imperilled Australian squamates (n = 88). We reviewed primary literature and conservation assessments on these species and …