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Species richness increases markedly during the first years after fire, driven mainly by the increase in the number of herbaceous species. However, such increase is variable in space and time, due to the role that the different plant life-forms can play after the fire disturbance. In addition, the absence of reliable species richness information can be a limitation for decision making when postfire management actions are needed. In this study we used QuickBird imagery to develop multiscale, spatially explicit predictive models of species richness in a burned area 1year after a fire. The study area is an abandoned dehesa (a Quercus suber (cork oak) open woodland with shrubs) of central Spain, which had been affected by a large summer fire. Two 90×180m macroplots were established, where species richness and percentage cover of various plant life-forms were measured at three spatial scales (1, 25, and 100m²). Total …