Escalating landscape fire exposure and its deteriorating global equity: Role of associated population changes, socioeconomic levels, and climate changes

Landscape fires significantly impact ecosystems and human populations worldwide, with recent large-scale events causing substantial socioeconomic consequences. Humanity faces increasingly severe fire exposure challenges, while a global analysis of cumulative human exposure to large fires and its inequality has been lacking. Here, we present a global analysis of human exposure to large fires (≥95th percentile by radiative power) from 2002 to 2020, integrating satellite-derived fire perimeters, population dynamics, and socioeconomic-climatic factors. Our results reveal that 712 million people were directly exposed to large fires, with Africa bearing the highest burden (51% of global exposure), followed by Asia (32%) and South America (8%). Secondary exposure (populations within 5 km buffers) was 41 times higher than primary exposure, emphasizing cascading societal risks. Trend analysis identified significant increases in exposure across Africa (+1.94%/yr), South America (+7.93%/yr) and North America (+3.39%/yr), significantly associated with anthropogenic factors (population growth: 91% of countries; GDP: 88%). Cluster analysis stratified nations into three risk profiles: high-resource and high-exposure; low-exposure and low-resource; and extreme-fire-weather dominated. These findings highlight escalating inequities, as vulnerable regions with limited adaptive capacity face accelerating risks. Our study underscores the urgency of context-specific mitigation strategies, prioritizing population governance in fire-prone ecosystems and climate-resilient infrastructure in developing nations.