As an ecological process fire plays a global role in structuring ecosystems and their constituent fauna and flora. Fire is also regularly applied as a landscape management tool and altered fire regimes affect global biodiversity. Fire can have a marked influence on vegetation composition and structure with resultant flow on impacts on faunal communities. However, faunal responses to fire are often quite varied and management recommendations of appropriate fire regimes therefore generally include utilising a fire mosaic approach to fire management. This thesis investigates the relationship between variable fire regimes, vegetation composition, condition and structure, and ground-dwelling vertebrate faunal communities. The literature review (Chapter 1) revealed several gaps in current knowledge. This included a lack of detailed knowledge on the effects of variable fire regimes, including repeated management burns and fire mosaics, representative of multiple fire parameters (time since fire, number of fires, fire interval and fire type), on ecosystem biota. This was particularly evident for subtropical ecosystems. To analyse the effects of repeated burns, fire exclusion and wildfire, this study targeted one of the longest running fire experiments in Australia, at Bauple State Forest, where fire treatments have been applied annually since 1952 and triennially since 1973. Additional dry eucalypt forest sites at St Mary and Tiaro State Forests were included that represented variable fire management practices. Detailed fauna trapping surveys and vegetation assessments were completed on 35 plots across eight fire treatments at all three sites. Additionally, a broader scale GIS analysis of fire history was done across the three forests with surveys undertaken at an additional 74 sites allowing a comparison of reptile communities, forest condition and structure among variable fire regimes at multiple scales.