LOS ANGELES – Officials blamed a wildfire that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week on a boy playing with matches, and said they would ask a prosecutor to consider the case.

The boy admitted to sparking the fire on Oct. 21, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Diane Hecht said Tuesday. Ferocious winds helped it quickly spread.

“He admitted to playing with matches and accidentally starting the fire,” Hecht said in a statement.

Police did not release the boy’s name. Los Angeles County fire Capt. Michael Brown only would say Wednesday that he was younger than 13.

The boy was released to his parents, and the case will be presented to the district attorney’s office, Hecht said. It was not clear at the time if he had been arrested or cited by detectives.

Arson investigators first talked to the boy’s parents on Oct. 22 after determining the blaze began the day before in the back yard of their Agua Dulce home, Brown said.

The home was not damaged in the fire, Brown said.

Investigators initially considered a downed power line as the source of the fire, but never officially listed it as the cause.

The blaze, which spread quickly through the neighborhood, was among 15 or so major wildfires that destroyed some 2,100 homes and blackened 809 square miles from Los Angeles to the Mexican border last week.

Seven deaths were blamed directly on the fires, six evacuees died of natural causes and one person died of a fall.

Authorities arrested five people for arson during that period, but none have been linked to any of the major blazes.

All but four of the blazes are now fully contained. Firefighters on Wednesday continued to cut lines around the remaining fires and kept a close eye on the weather.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Deputy Maribel Rizo said prosecutors were yet to determine if the boy’s parents would be held accountable for any financial losses that were caused by the wildfire.

Rizo did not know when prosecutors would be given the case.