Story highlights The largest of the fires grows to 173,000 acres

Thousands of firefighters are working to contain the blazes

Carpinteria, California (CNN) Gov. Jerry Brown has a sobering message for Southern Californians after a week of raging wildfires: This is your new normal.

A half dozen fires have collectively scorched nearly 200,000 acres since last week and destroyed 792 structures, according to officials.

As 4,000 firefighters battled the largest one, the Thomas Fire, the governor surveyed the damage in Ventura County on Saturday.

"This is kind of the new normal," he said, adding that extreme fire activity will happen on a regular basis for decades.

"With climate change, some scientists are saying that Southern California is literally burning up," he said. "So we have to have the resources to combat the fires and we also have to invest in managing the vegetation and forests ... in a place that's getting hotter."

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