the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 27 Dec 2025
The Fire Modeling Intercomparison Project (FireMIP) for CMIP7
Abstract. Fire is a global phenomenon and a key Earth system process. Extreme fire events have increased in recent years, and fire frequency and intensity are projected to rise across most regions and biomes, posing substantial challenges for ecosystems, the carbon cycle, and society. The Fire Model Intercomparison Project (FireMIP), launched in 2014, has contributed to advancing global fire modeling in Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) and improving understanding of fire's local drivers and local impacts on vegetation and land carbon budgets through land offline (i.e., uncoupled from the atmosphere) simulations. We now bring FireMIP into Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 7 (CMIP7) to: (1) evaluate fire simulations in state-of-the-art fully coupled Earth system models (ESMs); (2) assess fire regime changes in the past, present, and future, and identify their primary natural and anthropogenic forcings and causal pathways within the Earth system, including the associated uncertainties; and (3) quantify the impacts of fires and fire changes on climate, ecosystems, and society across Earth system components, regions, and timescales, and elucidate the underlying mechanisms. FireMIP in CMIP7 will advance the fire and fire-related modeling in fully coupled ESMs, and provide a quantitative, detailed, and process-based understanding of fire's role in the Earth system by using models that incorporate critical climate feedbacks and multi-model, multi-initial-condition, and CMIP7 multi-scenario ensembles. This paper presents the motivation, scientific questions, experimental design and its rationale, model inputs and outputs, and the analysis framework for FireMIP in CMIP7, providing guidance for Earth system modeling teams conducting simulations and informing communities studying fire, climate change, and climate solutions.
Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors is a member of the editorial board of Geoscientific Model Development.
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.- Preprint
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Status: open (until 21 Feb 2026)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-6115', Anonymous Referee #1, 07 Feb 2026 reply
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- 1
This protocol paper outlines the Fire Model Intercomparison Project (FireMIP) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 7 (CMIP7). It establishes a comprehensive experimental design, including specific simulations, required inputs and outputs, and a detailed analysis framework. The primary contribution is to provide a standardized, community-wide approach for evaluating fire simulations in Earth System Models, assessing past and future fire regime changes and their drivers, and quantifying the multifaceted impacts of fires on climate, ecosystems, and society within a fully coupled modeling framework. The protocol is clearly written and well structured. However, while the paper well describes the technical specifications and experimental design, the accompanying discussion of fire associated in-depth scientific analyses remains comparatively general and would benefit from a stronger theoretical framework or clearer metrics. Given the critical importance of fire in the earth system and the global need to reduce model uncertainties, this FireMIP paper is a substantial contribution that merits careful revision before publication.
Major Remarks:
The “recommended analyses” section requires further strengthening. Currently, its three subsections align well with the three scientific questions outlined in the paper: (1) How do models perform? (2) How do fire regimes change? (3) What is the impact? Yet the subsection titles remain overly general, limiting their ability to reflect the specific features of a FireMIP. To enhance the clarity, I recommend introducing structured subsections that explicitly reflect the unique scope and design of FireMIP. For instance, under the first question (How do models perform?), subsections could include: “Regional evaluation (e.g., permafrost fires, Amazon fires, and African fires)”, “Evaluation of burned area, fire frequency, and carbon emissions”, “Variability and sensitivity analysis”. Such structuring would better articulate the key dimensions of fire model assessments, ensuring the recommendations are tailored to the project’s objectives and actionable for future implementations.
Minor Comments:
Line 116-129: Both “scientific question 1” and “critical issue addressed by Li et al., (2024)” use “(1)”. Consider using different notations to avoid confustion.
Line 130: The key point of the second scientific question is unclear, as multiple aspects are combined without clear distinction. While Figure 1 provides a good summary of Q2, the corresponding text description (Line 132-136) lacks clarity.
Line 163-165: How to generate the initial condition for offline land model is unclear.
Line 175: Should the “Fire impacts” group 3 in Table 1?
Line 183-187: The description of 2.3 and 2.4 are different with Table 1. What is “overshoot”? Could be more specific than Table 1.
Line 190: Should “failed-policy futures” be “future failed-policy”?
Line 221-223: By comparing different experiment results, we are able to answer different questions. To summarize these potential comparisons in Figures or Tables would be helpful to enhance the clarity.
Line 226-234: How these inputs could be used in any example models could be demonstrated in Figures.
Line 239-240: Not sure how common these (2-5) inputs are used by different models. If very common, standardized inputs will help reduce uncertainties.
Line 243 &249: “driver” should be “drivers”. Not clear what does “impact variables” exactly mean.
Line 272-273: This sentence is unclear for me. Do you mean “Variables required by CMIP7 FireMIP are all listed in CMIP7 DECK and AFS experiments.”? I feel confused about “no additional requests specifically for FireMIP”. Aren’t burned area fraction and fire carbon emission specifically for FireMIP? If these two variables are already included in CMIP7 list, I don’t think it is necessary to mention this sentence.
Line 297-304: Showing the data uncertainties of fire counts and carbon emissions in Figures would be helpful to learn the quality of these benchmarks.
Line 284: Figures could be used to help demonstrate potential analysis.
Line 285-321: Only data sources were introduced in this section. What kind of metrics can be used or what aspects can be focused on should be also introduced?
Line 322: I prefer to a clearer title “Fire-related changes and corresponding drivers”.
Line 329-339: Categorizing drivers of fire-related changes would strengthen the clarity of the potential analysis.
Line 341-353: Categorizing the impact would enhance the clarity of the potential analysis.