Wildfire and recreational use of public lands have both surged, particularly across the western US where federal lands comprise nearly half the region. In response to intensifying wildfire, land managers are expanding prescribed fire programs as a fuel-reduction strategy. Yet how either fire type reshapes visitation, a contribution of nature to people that underpins human well-being, remains poorly quantified, limiting managers' ability to evaluate trade-offs and holistically account for important values provided by public lands. Here, we analyze 185 wildfire sites and 54 prescribed fire sites across California and Colorado public lands, combining large-scale digital mobility-based visitation models with quasi-experimental event-study designs to provide the first landscape-scale estimates of how fire type, severity, and ecosystem context shape visitation over time. Wildfires consistently reduced visitation (-8% to -18% one year post-fire), with impacts scaling with severity. High-severity fires in California produced persistent losses (-33% year one; -44% year five), whereas low-severity effects remained near-neutral. Prescribed fire effects were state-dependent (positive in Colorado, negative in California) but transient, converging to no detectable effect within three years. High-recreation counties experienced disproportionately larger wildfire impacts in Colorado. These results demonstrate that high-severity forest fires substantially reduce recreation while low-severity wildfire and prescribed fire do not, providing empirical foundations for fire management strategies that account for recreational use and values.