The Influence of Seismic Lines on Wildfire Potential in the Boreal Region of Northern Alberta, Canada
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this investigation of the influence of seismic lines on wildfire potential, the authors do a good job of exploring a range of meteorological, soil and landscape factors that influence local wildfire potential and in introducing the how characteristics of the seismic lines might impact fire potential. I very much appreciated the summary figure 16 and the use of the Fire Weather Index to explore how the variables might influence fire potential (figure 14 and 15) those two figures could be combined without losing information.
There are a couple of tables and figures which I found challenging to interpret.
Table 1 includes the starting values for three moisture codes - May 28th, July 22nd. Aside from the reference to these three codes in the Figure 5 – the conceptual model describing the Fire Weather Index and the description of how they inform the Fire Weather Index those “values” are not mentioned again. I think this is a level of detail that belongs in the metadata, appendices or code repository that explains how figures 14 and 15 were created. In other words, I think it could be removed from the paper.
Another simplification could be to remove Table 2 could be replaced with text in the methods that explains the Danger classes were assigned from very low to extreme based on the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index System (10). The relevant danger classes are depicted based on that system in figure 14 and 15.
Figure 10 The “top” graphic shows water table depth (dashed line) over time. What is the cyan dashed and solid blue vertical lines indicating? What is the dark blue line indicating? The bottom graphics show three lines – the axis is distance – what is the light grey seismic line related to?
Line 339 – in the text there is a discussion of the average water table depth but the figure is showing water table depth through time – that is ok but he range for the natural area says 34-39 – and the average is listed as 40 – based on the graphic the range is not 34-39.
The average water table depth was 6 cm below ground surface (bgs) on the seismic line at the NS study site (range = -1-19 cm bgs), while in the adjacent natural area the average water table depth was 40 cm (range = 34-39 cm bgs), indicating consistently wetter conditions on the seismic line than in the adjacent area (Figure 10b)
I would remove “more” from more similar .. also the numbers in the figure do not match the depths on the legend. Either there is an error or I am not understanding the text explaining the figure.
More similar water table conditions were observed at the EW study site, where the average depth to water table was 20 and 27 cm bgs on the seismic line and in the adjacent natural area, respectively (Figure 10a).
Figure 11 is also very confusing. The “center, edge, natural” are represented as a line – where those measurements really represent points. The blue triangle indicates the “edge”.
It seems like Figure 12 and Table 3 could be combined into a single table – if they are based on the same belt plots. That would help reduce the number of figures and simplify the story.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript focuses on describing the differences in fire environment between seismic lines and nearby forests, but the analysis of the potential effects on potential fire behavior is insufficient which seismic lines may cause at the landscape scale. The discussion need to be rewritten and focus on the impacts of seismic line. The manuscript has quite a few charts, and it is recommended to delete some unnecessary ones.
(1) Figures 1-3 can be merged to a figure to illustrate the location of the study area and overview of plots.
(2) Was the VWC in formula (2) related to the investigation time? It affects the index of Hcomb/Hign, which is a representative indicator. The manuscript can discuss its effects on smoldering in peak fire season or extreme drought conditions,
(3) Delete Figure 5. Most readers are familiar with the FWI system, and a brief description is sufficient.
(4) Line 228: "See Van Wagner and Pickett, 1985 for a detailed description of the calculations involved in the FWI." It is recommended to cite the literature in a common format.
(5) Line 307: "The manual soil moisture measurements were more spatially distributed than the hourly logging soil moisture values above", how many samples are there in total? Sampling frequency? The description in the method is not clear enough. Soil moisture is related to meteorological conditions, and analysis of its relationship with DMC and DC can be considered.
(6) Figure 12 and Table 3 should be placed after the text.
(7) 4.6 Fine fuel properties: This is not Fine fuel, and I think duff is more appropriate. It would be meaningful to analyze Hcomb/Hign in conjunction with changes of FWI or DC.
(8) 4.7 Fire Weather Index: This part should be the most important one considered the title of this manuscript. However, here only briefly lists the curve of FWI without in-depth analysis combined with other indices. It’d be better to cover one fire season for the analysis, but the manuscript analyze the two plots in different periods. Figures 14 and 15 showed the differences in FWI, but lacked test results. I think the differences of FFMC or DMC may be more significant.
(9) Although the title emphasizes "impact of seismic lines on wildfire potential", the results section mainly describes the changes in various environmental factors, and the analysis of the potential impact on wildfire is insufficient. The ultimate targets should be the impacts of changes in environmental factors on the fire occurrence or potential behavior. It is recommended to analyze these effects based on a fire behavior model or burn probability model. Although a conceptual model (Fig 16) was proposed during the discussion, but such a model is meaningless. I suggest to rewrite the discussion section, focusing on the impact of environmental changes in seismic lines on wildfire at the landscape scale, or to discuss changes in fire occurrence or fire behavior caused by seismic lines during different periods /drought scenarios.
The results section needs to be more refined.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I read the revised manuscript and thought it obviously improved. I agree to accept it for publication.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your time and dedication to this manuscript. We appreciate your previous edits, and for taking the time to review this document once more after the edits were made. Thank you for helping us to improve the quality of this manuscript.
