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Green and sustainable cellulose aerogels have attracted extensive attention, but are severely limited by unsatisfied elasticity, fatigue resistance as well as fire hazard for functional applications. Herein, we proposed a novel and feasible strategy to fabricate highly elastic, thermal insulating and fireproof phytic acid/cellulose (PA/CE) aerogel via constructing microfilament substructure derived from PA-induced aggregation and assembly of cellulose chains. Benefiting from the interconnected fibrous cellular walls integrating with abundant microfilaments, the resultant PA/CE aerogels demonstrated excellent compressibility and resilience with recovery rate of 91.26% after 100 compressive cycles at 50% strain. With the hierarchical porous structure, PA/CE aerogels exhibited low thermal conductivity of 0.0340–0.0352 W/m·K, could maintain its structural integrity and high temperature thermal insulation after heat treatment for 30 min at 400 ℃. Moreover, the integration of PA enabled aerogel high fireproofing with limiting oxygen index (LOI) of 42.6% and UL-94 V-0 rating. The peak of heat release rate (PHRR) and total heat release (THR) of PA/CE aerogels were 79.97 kW/m2 and 1.75 MJ/m2, reduction by 43.0% and 46.5% compared with cellulose aerogels. Thus, the elastic cellulose aerogels proposed by this strategy provide an insight and feasibility for high performance and multifunctional applications. [Display omitted] • PA-induced aggregation and assembly of cellulose chains was proposed. • The resulting PA/CE aerogels had hierarchical porous structure with plentiful microfilament substructures. • The aerogels displayed excellent compressibility and fatigue resistance with recovery rate of 91.26% after 100 compressive cycles. • The aerogels possessed high temperature thermal insulation with structural integrity bearing heat treatment at 400 ℃ for 30 min. • The aerogels showed high fireproofing with 43.0% and 46.5% reduction of PHRR and THR compared with CE aerogels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]