Western rangelands over the last decade have been experiencing some of the worst fire seasons on record and are predicted to continue to do so. Without restoration efforts, many of these sites will become occupied by non-native annual species, thus, further increasing fire frequencies, while having a devastating impact on water quality and soil health. Consequently, it is imperative that we understand the mechanisms influencing seed germination and establishment in postfire conditions in order to develop approaches that enhance revegetation success, and maintain soil stability. The influence of postfire soil water repellency (WR) on revegetation success is lacking and currently there is no research which has been performed in determining how WR influences species composition. We have hypothesized that the influence of WR at or beneath the soil surface following fire may have severe consequences on native vegetation reestablishment, by decreasing water availability, which in turn favors more drought tolerant weed species, such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum). Water repellency is one factor which may vary among different ecological sites; thus, influencing site recovery differently. By understanding how variation in ecological attributes of a site influence the severity of water repellency, land managers could potentially predict which sites need restoration before valuable soil resources are lost, and or the system passes through an ecological threshold, where a secondary state of weed dominance persists. The objective of this study is to determine how variations in ecological site attributes influence postfire WR and subsequent vegetation recovery. Our research is currently being conducted within the boundaries of the Milford Flat Fire, Utah’s large fire on record. In this paper we present the preliminary findings of this research and demonstrate how ecological site attributes such as soil texture, organic matter content, species composition and density influence the severity of WR.