Modification of Soil Hydroscopic and Chemical Properties Caused by Four Recent California, USA Megafires
, Eric Schneider 2,3, Christopher P. Rüger 2,3, Shelby Inouye 4, Brad Sion 5, Kevin Axelrod 1,6, Palina Bahdanovich 1,6, Lukas Friederici 2,3, Yasaman Raeofy 1,6, Markus Berli 4, Alexandra Lutz 7, Ralf Zimmermann 2,3,8 and Hans Moosmüller 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Introduction
In the introduction, the authors should provide some information on how the height of the fire temperature affects the hydrophobicity of the soil. These processes occur differently in low-temperature (surface) fires than in complete fires.
Materials and Methods
Line 230 Authors should specify what type of soil the experiment was conducted on using the WRB 2015 classification.
The sand, silt and clay content results indicate that the soil has been sieved. Authors should provide information about what diameter (1 or 2 mm)
Figure 2. It would be good if the authors in the future used a ruler (in cm or in ches) to assess the size of a drop of water, and not a pen
Results and Discussion
If possible, the authors should indicate how the content of soil organic matter affects the increase in soil hydrophobicity after fire. The soils differed 4 times in terms of SOM.
References
The References section should be corrected according to the instructions for authors (all references).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
fire-2339166-peer-review-v1
The manuscript “Modification of soil hydroscopic and chemical properties caused by four recent California, USA megafires” addresses an interesting topic, which adhere to Fire journal policies.
The manuscript tackles a topic of interest, related to changes in the physical and chemical properties of mineral soil surfaces from the four megafires from California, USA. The experience of the authors and work is genuine. The manuscript is comprehensive, well written and presented. It is a very good methodological application and a great case study of soil & fire. The proposed improvements would only be small, subjective and personal preferences, and thus I will refrain.
In my opinion the present manuscript is very good and can be considered for publication by the academic editor. I congratulate the authors for their work.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
