A California man who deliberately started a wildfire that torched 100,000 acres of forest and destroyed a dozen homes in order to take a selfie video has been jailed.

Wayne Allen Huntsman was sentenced to 20 years in jail and fined $60million on Friday for starting the King Fire in 2014, one of California's worst fires that year.

Huntsman had initially denied starting the blaze, but on Friday changed his plea to guilty, sobbing as he told the court: 'I plead guilty because I did it.'

Wayne Allen Huntsman, from California, was sentenced to 20 years in jail and ordered to pay $60million to victims after he admitted starting the 2014 King Fire in order to take a selfie video (pictured)

In the video Huntsman can be seen surrounded by flames as he brags to the camera about being in danger

Huntsman was caught after he filmed a selfie video of himself surrounded by the fire, telling the camera: 'Listen, I got fire all around me. I'm stuck in the middle, babe.'

After fleeing the scene of his crime, Huntsman bumped into a Good Samaritan motorist who offered to give him a ride away from the flames.

Huntsman showed the driver the video, who filmed it on his own cell phone, before turning the evidence over to the authorities.

Huntsman started the fire on September 13 2014 in the Eldorado National Forest in the central Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Huntsman fled the scene of the fire before being picked up by a Good Samaritan driver who filmed him as he showed off the video (right) before alerting the police

The King Fire, one of the worst of 2014 in California, burned almost 100,000 acres of forest and destroyed 12 homes and around a 100 other buildings (pictured)

it took thousands of firefighters almost a month to bring the blaze under control, but not before it had destroyed vast swathes of forest.

A dozen homes were torched in the blaze along with 100 other structures. A handful of firefighters who attended the blaze suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Tom Boscow, whose house was consumed by the fire, told KCRA: 'He sure screwed my life up. Two months before the fire my insurance that I'd had for 24 years cancelled me.'

Colin Smith, a retiree who bought 89 acres of timber that was burned in the fire as an investment, added: 'That was going to be me retirement it was going to be my grandson's college education.

'Its gone. The guy made a mistake and it cost a lot of people a lot of heartache.'