The 'clean' surface of silica glass is usually covered with a quasi-layer of hydroxyl groups. These groups are significant as their concentration on a surface affects surface adhesion and chemical reactivity. Removal of hydroxyl groups from the surface by a UV pulsed laser treatment has been demonstrated to be an alternative technique to the dehydroxylation of glass by the traditional oven heat treatment. Silica so treated has improved resistance to particulate adhesion. Dehydroxylation using this UV laser treatment has key advantages of being: a much faster process; largely limited to heating the surface not the bulk of the silica; and which allows selective spatial patterning of the dehydroxylation of the silica surface. This work outlines a technique developed to allow systematic, quantitative measurements of the dehydroxylation of UV fused silica. The removal of hydroxyl groups using laser irradiation is shown to be a thermal process.