[curmudgeonII]

...about forty miles of forest

Forty square miles?
A path forty miles long?
An area 40 miles by 40 miles?

[Publius6961]

Please make a careful note. The media always gets it wrong, and it is maddening, because civilians have a smaller hope of getting the correct information.

40 square miles is a square 6.32 miles to a side, or a rectangle 2 miles wide and 20 miles long.

40 miles square is always 1600 square miles.