Talk:Murphy Complex Fire

A fact from Murphy Complex Fire appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 10 January 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the 2007 Murphy Complex Fire burned 652,016 acres (263,862 ha) of land and was the largest wildfire in Idaho in 97 years?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Murphy Complex Fire.

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Fire size

The nifc.gov large fires page gives the size of the fire as 652,016 acres, while the BLM reclamation page gives the separate Idaho and Nevada sizes as 483,000 and 170,000 acres respectively, which totals 653,000 acres. I imagine that the BLM has done significant rounding, but we still have two different sources with slightly different acreage totals, and the article does nothing to reconcile the two or close the 984 acre gap.

Right now, the nifc article states that the 652,016 is an approximate number, which the source does not do, but makes no such qualification for the BLM's 483,000 and 170,000, both of which look far more approximate than the first number. (The BLM article does use more precise numbers about other acreages, and also uses "about 425,000 acres" when discussing another issue, which just confuses the issue.) Perhaps some other source can be found that will allow for the numbers to agree better. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Can you come with good wording to reconcile that? PumpkinSky talk 22:00, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I tried, using the available material. I'll let you judge whether it's a reasonable approach. :-) BlueMoonset (talk) 02:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]