Abstract: Wildfires can substantially disturb hillslope surface conditions by damaging vegetation canopies, litter layers, and root systems and by altering surface roughness, soil infiltration, runoff pathways, and sediment connectivity. These changes may enhance the transfer of eroded sediment from hillslopes to channels and watershed outlets and consequently increase the risk of post-fire soil erosion and debris flows. Although previous studies have extensively investigated post-fire hillslope erosion, relatively limited attention has been paid to the multi-year evolution of sediment connectivity and sediment delivery during vegetation recovery, particularly their differences among areas affected by different fire severities. Therefore, understanding whether the recovery of vegetation and sediment transport conditions occurs synchronously is important for evaluating the persistence of post-fire geomorphic disturbance. This study investigated the burned area affected by the March 30, 2020 wildfire in Xichang, southwestern China. Multi-temporal remote sensing data were integrated to characterize the spatiotemporal evolution of post-fire vegetation and sediment transport conditions from 2019 to 2025. Fire severity was classified into low-, moderate-, and high-severity zones using the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) combined with field observations. The vegetation cover and management factor (C) was derived from the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) to characterize vegetation and surface-cover conditions. The index of connectivity (IC) was calculated by integrating topography, vegetation cover, and runoff pathways to represent the potential connectivity of sediment transfer from hillslopes to channels and watershed outlets. The sediment delivery ratio (SDR) was subsequently estimated using an empirical IC-based function to characterize the relative efficiency of potential sediment delivery. In addition, a normalized recovery index (RI) was introduced using the pre-fire condition in 2019 and the immediate post-fire condition in 2020 as reference states to quantitatively compare the recovery trajectories of C, IC, and SDR under different fire severities.The results showed that wildfire disturbance caused pronounced increases in C, IC, and SDR, indicating substantial vegetation loss, enhanced hillslope-channel connectivity, and increased potential sediment delivery efficiency. After the fire, all three indicators generally exhibited a temporal pattern characterized by a rapid decline followed by gradual stabilization. However, their recovery trajectories differed substantially among fire-severity classes. The unburned area mainly exhibited interannual fluctuations without a persistent recovery trend, whereas the low-severity area showed relatively strong year-to-year variability. In the moderate-severity area, the recovery indices of C, IC, and SDR were 0.75, 0.68, and 0.69 in 2021, respectively, indicating that vegetation conditions initially recovered faster than sediment transport conditions. By 2025, these values increased to 0.94, 0.97, and 0.97, respectively, showing convergence among the three recovery trajectories. In contrast, the high-severity area exhibited persistent asynchronous recovery. From 2021 to 2025, the recovery of IC and SDR consistently lagged behind that of C by approximately 0.08–0.11 and 0.07–0.09, respectively. By 2025, C had nearly returned to its pre-fire state (RI = 0.98), whereas IC and SDR remained lower, with RI values of 0.89 and 0.90, respectively. These results demonstrate that vegetation recovery does not necessarily imply synchronous recovery of hillslope-channel sediment transport conditions. Vegetation restoration can progressively reduce sediment connectivity by increasing surface cover and roughness, interrupting runoff pathways, and enhancing sediment interception. However, sediment connectivity is also constrained by topography, flow-path organization, channel structure, and persistent post-fire surface disturbance, which may result in delayed adjustment of sediment transport conditions, particularly in high-severity burned areas. Because SDR was derived from an empirical function of IC, the two indicators are not fully independent and should be interpreted as complementary measures of spatial connectivity and relative sediment delivery efficiency rather than independent evidence of causal processes. Overall, the findings highlight distinct fire-severity-dependent and stage-dependent recovery trajectories of vegetation and sediment transport conditions and provide a scientific basis for post-fire soil and water conservation, sediment management, and debris-flow risk mitigation.