Sometimes these numbers were presented in the aggregate. Sometimes they were reported for particular fires, names of which also became part of the common litany, the Witch and Harris fires, the Grass Valley, the Santiago, the Slide.

The tone of the public information officers and radio announcers who passed along the numbers, providing updates with the regularity of rush-hour traffic reports, was one of awe and reverence. After a certain point, of course, the numbers blurred together and, as informational reference points, lost their power.

[LA Times]

A truer concept has not been expressed by the media in the course of this ordeal. Words like devastation, destruction, and war zone, become meaningless. Numbers far more so.

Perhaps Sympathy will still stand.