Prescribed fire is an important management tool that affects the availability and quality of resources for arthropods in temperate deciduous forests. We quantified occupancy of wood cavities by arthropods within burned and unburned portions of a temperate deciduous forest in the eastern United States.  We placed 400 wood blocks (4.0 x 4.5 x 25 cm) on the forest floor at each site.  Each block had either one 10mm diameter cavity or two 5mm diameter cavities drilled 8 cm deep into its ends.  We collected the contents of the cavities over a 5-month period immediately following the burn and again two years post-burn. Arthropod occupancy was higher in the burned site (37% ± 4%) vs. the unburned site (17% ± 3%) immediately following the fire, but converged on similar frequency after two years (26% ± 3% and 28% ± 3%, respectively). Ants, spiders, and the cockroach Parcoblatta pennsylvanica (De Geer, 1773) were the most common cavity occupants. There was a tendency for ants and spiders to inhabit either small (5mm) or large (10mm) cavities, respectively; bees and wasps collectively occupied both diameters with similar frequency. The results of this study suggest that prescribed fire enhances occupancy of wood cavities by arthropods over the short term, perhaps by reducing the availability of natural cavities.  Understanding the effects of fire on the ecology of forest arthropods is essential for biodiversity conservation.