This work provides a second analysis of the Dixie fires impact on thermal IR radiance. It refutes some of the argumentation of the initial paper (S24), provides additional analysis and data, and a different conclusion.

Being a reviewer of the initial S24 paper, I remained unconvinced by the plausibility of a BT drop as large as 25K only due to insulation reduction. Although this specific point was never fully addressed, all data and explanations were scientifically reasonable as far as I am able to judge. In particular, the absence of night-time TIR signal is crucial in justifying the explanation of insulation reduction.

The work from M. Fromm presented here provides very relevant additional data in the analysis, from different times and/or instruments and some data aggregated in useful movies. In particular, it shows a clear and significant TIR night-time signature of the plume, and a different radar analysis including discussion of the important limitations of such observations, which were not discussed in S24 and are beyond my scientific expertise. These represent convincing evidence towards the presence of particles causing TIR extinction, adding to the insulation shielding and providing a reasonable explanation for a satellite BT drop as high as 25K.

I think that this work bring significant additional scientific elements as much as the initial S24 paper, and must be published. Hopefully this will foster scientific discussions to disentangle the TIR impact of fire plumes, which is of very high importance for their detection, observation and modelling. To my point of view, even after both analyses of the Dixie fires, some observations remain not fully explained, such as a different VIS / SWIR / TIR relationship at different moments of the event. Hopefully both these publications will foster additional research in this field.

I have only a small amount of minor comments / corrections on this manuscript:

Lines 61-63: please also mention the effect of the surface emissivity - if it is much lower than 1 then the satellite BT also significantly diverges from the surface skin T

Line 84: I think the word "sufficed" comes out too strong, as S24 did not only rely on the absence of SWIR signal to get to their conclusions

Line 100: typo in DIxie

Line 237: I think there is one "at" too many

Figures 1 and 2: I can't read the scale / legend

Figure 4: I think the caption should contain all relevant information (except if very long) so I would avoid sending back to the text for the coordinates; also I would specify 2m air temperature (if I am correct) and 10.3µm window BT (again if correct)

I recommend this Comment be accepted as is. I'm in full agreement with the points made by the author regarding Sorensen (2024).