26. Fires and Acres Burned Listed below are the numbers of fires (in thousands) and the acres that were burned (in millions) in 11 western states in each year of the last decade (based on data from USA Today). Is there a correlation? The data were listed under a headline of “Loggers seize on fires to argue for more cutting.” Do the data support the argument that as loggers remove more trees, the risk of fire decreases because the forests are less dense?

Fires 73 69 58 48 84 62 57 45 70 63 48 Acres burned 6.2 4.2 1.9 2.7 5.0 1.6 3.0 1.6 1.5 2.0 3.7 538 Chapter 10 Correlation and Regression