Up in Flames

While the forest fire season has started early and resulted in major losses, any suggestion that this is perhaps the worst fire season on record is absurd (letter, June 26). A quick look at the historical record shows that at least a dozen more major fires like the ones in Arizona or Colorado must occur to even reach the annual average of acres burned as recently as the 1950s--and many more than that to reach the level of the 1930s when, on average, an area almost 100 times the size of the Rodeo-Chediski fire burned each year.

Keith Price

Los Angeles