Around 1,000 homes went up in flames as three wildfires raged in California over the past six days. The fires blazed through parts of Los Angeles, Orange County and Montecito, forcing an estimated 50,000 people to evacuate.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described the damage left behind as “Armageddon” after flying over the affected areas.

The number of blazes in California this year is expected to be around double that of last year. This increase is largely a result of a two-year drought coupled with higher-than-average temperatures. California’s fire season used to start in August and continue until the end of the year, but now the fire season is year-round.

A spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Idaho, Ken Frederick, declared that California has entered into a “mega-fire era” and called the state the epicenter of wildfire activity this year.

The growing number of fires has cost the Golden State over $450 million this year already, far surpassing the cost for the entire 2006-07 fire season and adding to California’s mushrooming debt.

The rise in wildfires is not limited to California. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, since 2000 the United States as a whole has experienced six of the top 10 busiest fire seasons since records began to be kept back in 1960.

Yet among these burning states, California is far above any other when it comes to making wildfire headlines. There is a reason California is experiencing more disasters than any other place in the nation. Read “California Disasters Continue—Why?” to learn why California is suffering the most.