Acres burned in California on CalFire jurisdiction lands by year:
1936– 756,696
2008– 630,886 (to date)
2007– 434,667
2003– 404,328
2006– 222,896
The numbers are provided by CNN. They did not say if these are the top 5 years, but did state that the previous high was the 1936 figure. I assume there were several other years when more than 222,896 acres burned that are not listed here, for example, 1970, when the Laguna fire east of San Diego was 165,000 acres. Many other large fires burned in 1970 as well, leading to the development of the Incident Command System.
Update @ 1400:
A little research shows that in 1985, 235,400 acres burned on the Los Padres NF alone, due mostly to the Wheeler and Gorda-Rat fires.
Update @ 1440:
More research shows that the numbers provided by CNN are only for fires on CalFire jurisdiction. Geeze. Too bad they didn’t mention this little detail. HERE is a link with CalFire numbers by year.