A 37-year-old man was arrested and accused of igniting the massive King Fire, which has burned 71,000 acres of Sierra foothills east of Placerville while sending up a huge column of smoke visible from the Bay Area, officials said Thursday.

El Dorado County authorities took Wayne Allen Huntsman into custody Wednesday on suspicion of felony arson and jailed him in lieu of $10 million bail.

The King Fire, which began Saturday and now ranks as one of the largest wildfires burning in California, has forced thousands from their homes and closed a stretch of Highway 50, the popular route between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe.

Strong mountain winds were pushing the inferno north Thursday through the El Dorado National Forest. But no structures have been damaged because of the fire’s trajectory through sparsely populated hills, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

More than 2,000 homes remain threatened, however.

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