Increasing global human exposure to wildland fires despite declining burned area

Although half of Earth’s population resides in the wildland-urban interface, human exposure to wildland fires remains unquantified. We show that the population directly exposed to wildland fires increased 40% globally from 2002 to 2021 despite a 26% decline in burned area. Increased exposure was mainly driven by enhanced colocation of wildland fires and human settlements, doubling the exposure per unit burned area. We show that population dynamics accounted for 25% of the 440 million human exposures to wildland fires. Although wildfire disasters in North America, Europe, and Oceania have garnered the most attention, 85% of global exposures occurred in Africa. The top 0.01% of fires by intensity accounted for 0.6 and 5% of global exposures and burned area, respectively, warranting enhanced efforts to increase fire resilience in disaster-prone regions.