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Fire has potential in the management of invasive exotic shrubs in northern Australian tropical woodlands. Rubbervine (Cryptostegia grandiflora) is fire- sensitive, experiencing significant effects on soil seed viability, plant survival and post fire reproductive output; chinee apple (Ziziphus mauritiana) is fire resistant. Transition matrix models, based on growth and survival data from a site in north -east Queensland, were used to project the longer term impacts of hypothetical fire regimes. The models suggest that burning early in an invasion and repeated burning would severely reduce populations of C. grandiflora but that neither regime would greatly affect a population of Z. mauritiana.