Infrastructure exposure to wildfire in England is dominated by small, intensifying, peri-urban fires

Abstract Wildfire is an emerging threat to infrastructure in the United Kingdom (UK); yet current risk assessments often overlook the role of small, peri-urban wildfires. We present a scalable, data-driven methodology that integrates administrative recorded fires (ARFs) (recorded by local fire services), satellite-derived wildfire data, and empirically validated fire behaviour models to quantify infrastructure exposure across England for the power, rail, and road networks. Our analysis reveals that 99.91% of recorded wildfires are ARFs, which – despite their smaller sizes – intersect infrastructure corridors far more frequently than larger, rural wildfires. These smaller fires are projected to intensify most rapidly under projected future climate scenarios, particularly in peri-urban zones dominated by arable land and improved grassland. By modelling changes in flame length, rate of spread, and fireline intensity across increasingly severe climate scenarios, we demonstrate that infrastructure exposure is significantly underestimated when relying on satellite data alone. Our findings underscore the need for high-resolution fire data and behaviour modelling to inform climate-resilient infrastructure planning.