Attempts to smoke the lizard out of the tree were useless. On a number of occasions flames and smoke have been used to extract reptiles from rock crevices and logs. I did manage to smoke an adult Eastern Brown snake, Pseudonaja textilis, from a hollow log between Nevertire and Nyngan in western New South Wales. In that case it was clearly the smoke running up the log, rather than the heat which made the snake choose to flee. After bushfires the vegetation clearly goes through a change in vegetation regime.
Some plants regenerate quickly while others take many years longer to regenerate.
As the vegetation pattern varies, so too does the reptile composition. Around Sydney I've noted Bearded dragons , Pogona barbatus , appearing to have a preference for recently burnt bushland over adjacent unburnt areas. However, when many hundreds of square kilometres are burnt at a time in one place, I doubt that it would be possible for the local Bearded dragon population to be able to significantly capitalise on their newly formed preferred habitat. Death Adders, Acanthophis antarcticus , hiding in leaf and other ground litter would seem to be prime candidates for high mortality rates in bushfires. However, they seem to survive in reasonable numbers.