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SACRAMENTO, CALIF. A gigantic wildfire in and around Yosemite National Park was caused by an illegal fire set by a hunter, the U.S. Forest Service said Thursday.

The agency said there is no indication the hunter was involved with illegal marijuana cultivation, which a local fire chief had speculated as the possible cause of the blaze.

No arrests have been made, and the hunter's name was being withheld pending further investigation, according to the Forest Service. The only legal hunting allowed at the time the fire started Aug. 17 was archery for bear and deer.

A Forest Service statement gave no details on how the illegal fire in a remote canyon of the Stanislaus National Forest had escaped the hunter's control.

Because of high fire danger across the region, the Forest Service had banned fires outside of developed camping areas more than a week before the fire started.

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About 5 square miles of the burned area is in the watershed of the municipal reservoir serving 2.8 million people — the only one in a national park.

"That's 5 square miles of watershed with very steep slopes," said Alex Janicki, the Stanislaus National Forest BAER response coordinator. "We are going to need some engineering to protect them."

So far the water remains clear despite falling ash, and the city water utility has a six month supply in reservoirs closer to the Bay Area.