Dear Dr. Krikken et al.

Your paper has been reviewed by two experts on climate and meteorological factors involved in forest fires. Although one of them has accepted your paper with minor changes, the other one concludes that the paper does not bring any novelty and ask for major changes. It means that besides to introduce the minor changes proposed by the first referee you should to show clearly the added value of your contribution. It imply:
- to update the state of the art that you show in the Introduction (see, for instance, the papers published in the last five years in Nature Communications, Nature Climate Change, Climate Change,…, about forest fires and climate), in order to compare your results (other papers show a decreasing trend in forest fires- see for instance Turco M, Bedia J, Di Liberto F, Fiorucci P, von Hardenberg J, Koutsias N, et al. (2016) Decreasing Fires in Mediterranean Europe. PLoS ONE 11(3): e0150663. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150663);
- to avoid conclusions like the fact that the forest fires produced in Sweden in 2018 have been consequence of climate change, when you have obtained a decreasing trend until 2017;
- to include explanations about this observed decreasing trend;
- to explain better how do you obtain the factors of increased risk and what is the meaning of the expression “increased risk” (increased probability?, increased extension?, increased number of forest fires?)

I would like to invite you to prepare a revised manuscript considering carefully these comments.
With your revised manuscript, be sure to provide the author's reply which includes (i) a separate list with your responses to the comments of the referees (this can be similar or the same as the replies you gave online already, but you might find that some of your answers have now changed in preparing the revised manuscript taking into account my own comments); (ii) as part of your author reply (same document please) please provide a detailed (preferably using track changes) list of all the changes made to the text. By providing a detailed author's reply (where you go through each comment of the reviewers and tell the reviewers and myself how you replied) AND a track change document of what has changed, it will make the next step much faster.

I look forward to receiving the revised version of your work at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Prof. Maria Carmen Llasat

Dear Dr. Krikken and coauthors

I think you have suffered a little confusion. You must reply, in the same pdf document, but separately, to referee1, to referee 2 and, finally, also to the editor since she has included some comments in her letter. So please re-submit your reply to the reviewers and editor. You can use the same answers you wrote in the NHESSD version. Please use a different color or font to separate responses from reviewers' comments. Remember to reply to each comment separately.
Sincerely,
Prof. Maria Carmen Llasat

Dear Drs. Krikken et al.

Please receive my apologies for the delay in evaluating your paper. As I already indicated, one of the reviewers indicated that the article could be accepted after making minor changes, but the other requested major changes in the first review and rejected the article in the second. Under these conditions and after considering the reasons of both reviewers, it was necessary to find a third reviewer. It has not been easy as numerous experts I have contacted have refused to review the article.

I have finally found an expert who has reviewed the article and has considered that it can be published if a few minor changes are made. I therefore ask you to follow the suggestions of this reviewer and send the letter with your response to the journal at the end of which the revised article is found showing the changes made. In a separate document send the new version of the article in its final format.

Sincerely Yours
Maria Carmen Llasat
NHESS Editor

Dear Dr. Krikken and coauthors

I am pleased to inform you that the revised version of your manuscript NHESS-2019-206 “Attribution of the role of climate change in the forest fires in Sweden 2018” can now be accepted for publication in our journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS). Please inform your co-authors of the editorial decision.

You will soon be contacted by the journal publication office for the preparation of the final version of your manuscript. Please respond promptly to the requests of the publication office, as this will condition the time of your publication, and read carefully any copy-editing recommendations that they make. Let me remind you that final publication of your paper on the journal web site is subject to the payment of the appropriate service charges. Also, do not forget that as an open-access journal you can freely distribute your paper once it is published.

I take this opportunity to thank you and your co-authors for having selected Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences (NHESS) for the publication of your scientific work. I look forward to receiving further contributions to our journal from you and your co-authors.

Sincerely,
Maria Carmen Llasat
NHESS Editor