The application of controlled fire on post-mine rehabilitation is currently underutilised as an ecological tool throughout fire prone landscapes such as eastern Australia. Despite widely accepted benefits of fuel management and ecological outcomes, mined land managers are generally reluctant to incorporate fire regimes on rehabilitated lands. We applied an experimental fire to 117 ha of 19- to 21-year-old coal mine rehabilitation in subtropical, semi-arid Central Queensland, Australia, and assessed the vegetation changes in five successive assessments for the two years following the burn. Vegetation metrics all showed trajectories towards pre-fire levels, or recovered to surpass pre-fire levels. Within two years of the burn, native species richness was significantly higher than pre-fire levels for both grassland and open woodland areas and vegetation cover had returned to pre-fire levels. Woody plant density ( < 2 m) increased from an average of 425-3,255 stems ha(-1) in open woodland areas reaching values higher than those recorded at unburnt historical transects (n = 145); while stems greater than 2 m in height declined from 585 to 220 ha(-1) due to the death of mature Acacia spp. The vegetative response following two wet seasons demonstrates short-term recovery following a range of fire impacts and demonstrates the potential to enhance the quality of the rehabilitation and increase the possibility of early relinquishment by reducing ecological, financial and reputational risks.