With the increase of risk of large, high severity fire across forests in the US, thinning of small trees and shrubs (i.e. fuels reduction treatments) has been widely implemented to reduce fire hazards. Although fuel reduction treatments can reduce the intensities of fire, less is known about the impacts of reducing understory complexity on the small mammal community which is not only an important prey base for larger forest carnivores, but also key in dispersing seeds and fungi. Using capture-recapture techniques, we estimate treatment impacts on the density of different species in the small mammal community within the Sagehen Experimental Forest in the central Sierra Nevada using a Before-After Control-Impact design. Our analysis shows that treatment impacts species differently, consistent with their natural history, but that this response was small relative to interannual variation. This study shows how larger-scale heterogeneity can support the small mammal community while increasing resiliency to forest fire across the landscape.