Fire-adapted species have evolved to exploit foraging opportunities in heterogenous landscapes. However, the widespread disruption of historical fire regimes may threaten the ability of fire-adapted species to acquire sufficient energy to survive and reproduce. The California spotted owl is a forest species that benefits from forest heterogeneity for hunting. While fires can have long lasting negative effects on spotted owl populations, we have yet to identify a mechanistic explanation for this species’ response to novel megafires. Here, we used a combination of fine-scale GPS tagging and camera monitoring in the Sierra Nevada and San Bernardino Mountains, California, to examine the impact of fire on the foraging behaviors and energetic consumption of breeding spotted owls. We found that individuals spent more energy for no energetic benefits in severely burned landscapes. In landscapes with higher pyrodiversity, individuals spent more energy obtaining resources but delivered prey with higher energetic potential to nestlings. At a fine-scale, successful prey captures were less likely where there was more high-severity fire, while lower-severity fire and a moderate level of pyrodiversity facilitated prey capture for some individuals. Thus, fire-driven heterogeneity may create hunting opportunities that promote energetic investments towards reproduction. However, as the climate warms and fires become increasingly large and contiguously severe, the energy spotted owls spend to forage may offset any energetic benefits of fire-driven heterogeneity. Ultimately, identifying forest restoration strategies that limit high-severity fire while promoting structural heterogeneity will be necessary to conserve trophic interactions in this and other forested ecosystems.