Re: “We should be thankful for forest-fire crews,” letter, Oct. 9. It is apparent the letter-writer misread Nick Raeside’s commentary. …The last paragraph in his article suggests looking at the numbers when comparing 2017 to 1958. I went further than that and looked at the numbers over many years in the past. …A quick comparison looks like this: 2017 — 1,302 fires — area burned 12,128 square kilometres; 2003 — 2,472 fires — area burned 2,647 sq. km; 2006 — 2,570 fires — area burned 1,392 sq. km; 2009 — 3,064 fires — area burned 2,474 sq. km. Raeside does make you ask the big question: Why?