This is a very ambitious and exciting project. The authors are to be applauded for the comprehensiveness of what will hopefully  become an annual effort. The strengths are the consistent approaches, the regional expert panel assessment, the efforts at attribution for key wildfires based on the COnFire and PoF models and the future outlook. The authors are also open about some of the issues and limitations of the first assessment. 

The online assets on Zenodo are really comprehensive and clear. The supplement nicely details extra figures and extended methods which i found useful

I outline some considerations below.

1. The authors state in the abstract that global wildfires are increasing in frequency and intensity. I thought this was debated and depends on the definition used?  I thought that biomass burning has been decreasing in topical regions and some longer term datasets showed more fires in past decades going back further than the last 20 years, the focus of these datasets. I think in this first paper it would be really worthwhile to address this debate head on as I expect the paper to be widely read.

2. Related to 1, I wondered whether any global indexes could be perhaps be presented in a key figure and discussed. Although, I understand the regional focus. 

3. The expert panel is a really nice idea, it might be nice to have some more information on how it made its decisions and what data it used.

4. Section 3, it would be useful to specify the averaging period used for "higher than average" statements etc. 

5. Table 2 repeats Africa

6. Section 4 might additionally briefly discuss the role of PM2.5 and ozone from fires on ecosystem health?  

e.g. Tian, C. G., Yue, X., Zhu, J., Liao, H., Yang, Y., Lei, Y. D., Zhou, X. Y., Zhou, H., Ma, Y., and Cao, Y.: Fire-climate interactions through the aerosol radiative effect in a global chemistry-climate-vegetation model, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 22, 12353-12366, 10.5194/acp-22-12353-2022, 2022.

Great team, good idea, nice effort! Manuscript needs abundant change and improvement before it qualifies for ESSD.

Dear Authors,



Firstly, I would like to extend my warm congratulations on your comprehensive assessment of the state of extreme wildfires for 2023-24. This manuscript represents a significant and valuable contribution to the understanding of wildfires, and I believe it holds great potential for impactful publication after addressing a few minor revisions and additions. You can find my detailed comments attached to this review.