sq. km

In Galloway Forest Park, in south-west Scotland, an estimated 65 sq km burnt, nearly a quarter of the UK total.

The search will cover a 15,000 sq km area in the southern Indian Ocean, under a "no find, no fee" agreement with the exploration firm Ocean Infinity.

Military analysts estimate two-thirds of the 1,000 sq/km gained at the outset have since been lost.

It is now an estimated 3,234 sq km.

Its end-of-summer extent fell from an average of 7 million sq km in the 1980s to 4.5 million sq km in the 2010s.