Kansas Forest Service revises acreage burned in wildfires

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Forest Service has revised down the number of acres burned in last week’s wildfires. The agency posted on Facebook Tuesday that around 163,000 acres burned on Dec. 15, not the 400,000 that was first estimated. The Forest Service released a map showing the number of burned acres in each county. The Forest Service and the National Interagency Fire Coordination Center are using a new satellite data system to map ongoing wildfires. The service says that as heat, dust and smoke cleared, “the satellite was able to get a clearer picture of the landscape.” The technology also showed that some of the fires’ perimeters were calculated twice. The fires claimed two lives.