Dear authors:

Thank you for having active open discussion and providing your responses.
Both of the two referees evaluated positively about your manuscript, especially in terms of scientific quality. Overall, your replies about revision seem sufficient for the referees’ suggestions: minor or major revision. About the novelty of this study, we know that several papers are to be published from a model intercomparison study, and I agree with the significance of comprehensive analyses that can ‘provide improved understanding and process representations’. Therefore, I conclude that the manuscript needs major revision and would be examined again by the referees.

Dear authors:

Thank you for providing your reply comments in the open discussion and a revised manuscript. Now, I obtained follow up comments from the referees about their thought on your response. One referee (RC1) was satisfied with your reply, but another referee (RC2) has further concerns, as follows:

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1. in their replies, the Authors emphasize the uncertainty in satellite burned area products, but while i agree that there is uncertainty, the Authors may want to emphasize what improvements in satellite records are necessary to be an effective tool in evaluating fire models. i guess i am unclear whether any improvement in satellite records would suffice given these following confusing statements:

Reply 1: "The spatial patterns of burned area and its drivers are already well explored and understood." (Comment: isn't there uncertainty in the drivers related to humans/population and lightning? maybe the Authors need to be more specific in what exactly is understood)
Reply 1: "However, remotely sensed burned area datasets alone are not a sufficient basis to evaluate fire models as many model structures can lead to reasonable burned area patterns." (Comment: what kind of satellite burned area product would work then to evaluate fire models? insights from the Authors on that point may help guide remote sensing data products. also, doesn't this contradict the Reply 1 statement "The spatial patterns of burned area and its drivers are already well explored and understood."?)
Reply 4: "Moreover we now include a new publication (Forkel et al. 2019b) in the discussion which shows that the trends as observed by satellites are still highly uncertain and not robust." (Comment: what does highly uncertain mean? part of this is that i don't know the Forkel et al 2019b paper, but Authors could be more specific)

2. fairly simple is that the Authors forgot to provide a citation or DOI for the Forkel et al. 2019b paper which i would like to see since it is relevant to point 1.
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I think you can respond these comments without excessive difficulty. To ensure sufficient time for revision, my decision on the manuscript is “major revision”.

Dear Authors:
Thank you for providing your response to the additional referee comments and a revised manuscript. I confirmed you replied properly to all comments and it became clearer sufficiently for publication. Therefore, I would recommend the manuscript to be accepted.