REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LOS ANGELES -- A raging wildfire in central California that has forced more than 5,000 people from their homes spread rapidly on Thursday after destroying dozens of buildings not far from Yosemite National Park, fire officials said.

"We're doing everything we can to protect that town and all the other communities in that area," Amy Head, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire, said by telephone.

Mariposa is 50 miles (80 km) outside Yosemite National Park and largely dependent on tourism.

Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for California wildfire burns 45 buildings near Yosemite on Tuesday.

More than 3,000 firefighters, working in temperatures of 90 to 96 Fahrenheit (32 to 36 Celsius), were battling the fire, which has charred 70,596 acres (28,570 hectares), Cal Fire said.

It has expanded by more than 22,000 acres (8,903 hectares) since Thursday morning. Cal Fire said it has burned 45 buildings and damaged another six since it began on Monday. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The fire came within a half-mile of Mariposa on Wednesday, said Cal Fire spokeswoman Shanelle Saunders. The town's 2,000 residents were ordered on Tuesday to evacuate.

Yosemite National Park remained open. Saunders said the biggest concern with the park on Thursday was air quality due to heavy smoke.

The community of Coulterville was evacuated on Wednesday, Saunders said.

Meanwhile, in Montana, officials said that a 19-year-old firefighter was killed on Wednesday when part of a tree fell on him while he was combating the so-called Florence Fire north of Seeley Lake.

A total of 44 large fires across 11 western states were burning on Thursday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center's website.

As firefighters handled those blazes, the National Science Foundation announced that a study it had underwritten had found wildfires create their own weather, such as updrafts and eddies, which cause flames to spread out of control.

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