Journalism and numbers

Not a particularly interesting article about letting wild-fires burn (just for kicks, I'm for letting them burn). But in the second to last paragraph there's this

This year, fires have been allowed to burn under supervision across 257 square miles, amounting to 1.7 percent of about 14,800 square miles nationwide, according to the National Fire Information Center.

Totally useless information that's presented in such a way as to look useful. In an article about letting fires burn, the only useful comparison to how much is allowed to burn is to how much has burned. 257 square miles out of a total mileage burn of what? Is that out of 300 miles, or 3000? Longtime readers (Hi Mom) have read this beef before, but I can't help it, it always, always bothers me. How difficult would it have been for Jeff Barnard to ask the National Fire Information Center how many square miles have burned so far, giving the reader some useful information?