This is a well-designed and well-executed study looking at fire and soil influences on tree-grass dynamics and forest expansion in Cameroonian savannas. I have a number of general comments and specific comments in the attached pdf- these are all quite minor.

1. Framing forest expansion as something negative to mitigate is a point of view not all readers may understand or agree with - I would state why the authors view it as such, in the context of current management priorities for the parks being studied, for Cameroon, the wider region and also the region’s climatic history.
2. The writing – including punctuation and sentence structure – could be clearer in places and simplified to make the messages easier to understand to the reader. This is particularly the case in the introduction and the results section.
3. Some context on the fire regimes in the two study sites early on in the manuscript would be useful, so the reader understands the origin of the fires (park management? Local communities?) extent (all savannah patches?) and frequency (when are burn seasons?). This is really only introduced in the discussion.
4. Although implied, it might be also useful to state whether forest fires are detected or if these are uniquely savannah fires.
5. The introduction is very technically detailed as a literature review, although the information is relevant to the study. However, it is not explicitly clear what research problem is exposed by this review, that the study sets out to address. It would be good to address this
6. Figures and maps are too small and not very easy to read or understand. Colour palettes could be changed to be easier to read, and it is not easy to read the key results from the graphs in Figure 3 – it would be good if the authors could make the Figures clearer.