# (1) A rectangular building lot is 115 m^2 by 189 m^2 . Find the area of this lot in meter...

## Question:

(1) A rectangular building lot is 115 {eq}m^2 {/eq} by 189 {eq}m^2 {/eq}. Find the area of this lot in meter squares.

(2) Given: An acre is an area equivalent to that of a rectangle 60.5 yd wide and 80 yd long. There are 36 inches in one yard. There are 2.54cm in one inch.

In May 1998 , forest fires in southern Mexico and Guatemala spread smoke all the way to Austin. Those fires consumed forest land at a rate of 26600 acres/week.

On the average, how many square meters of forest are burned down every minute?

## Unit Conversion:

This problem involves the application of unit conversions to find the amount of forest burnt in the May of 1998 forest fire in Southern Mexico and Guatemala. The idea is to multiply the conversion factors to the actual number to convert the units. For example, 1 {eq}\displaystyle \textbf { yd }^2 = 36 \times 36 \textbf{ in}^2 {/eq}

Using this we can multiply all the conversion factors to get to the final solution.

## Answer and Explanation:

(1) Given a rectangular building lot is 115 m by 189 m.

We need to find the area of this lot in meter squares.

The area is simply,

{eq}\displaystyle A = L \times B = 115 \times 189 = 21,735 \textbf { m}^2 {/eq}

(2) Given all conversion factors between yards, inches, acre, and cms. Also, we know in May 1998, forest fires in southern Mexico and Guatemala consumed forest land at a rate of 26600 acres per week. We need to find how many square meters of the forest was burnt every minute.

So, the forest burnt every week in sq meters,

{eq}\displaystyle A = 26600 \times ( 60.5 \times 80 ) \times ( 36)^2 \times ( 2.54)^2 \times ( 10^{-4}) = 107,646,380.83584 {/eq}

Now we know one week is

{eq}\displaystyle T = 7 \times 24 \times 60 = 10,080 {/eq}

So, total area burnt in sq m, per minute is -

{eq}\displaystyle A' = \frac{ 107,646,380.83584}{10,080 } = 10,679.204 \textbf{ m}^2 /s {/eq}