Firefighters have personally warned property owners of an out-of-control bushfire in far eastern Victoria as residents remained unaware of repeated emergency warnings.
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Four Gippsland homeowners in the bushfire’s path were told by Country Fire Authority members this afternoon that the fire was heading in their direction and creating spot-fires up to 200 metres ahead of the fire front.
The fast-moving fire was expected to hit Lower Tonghi between 5.30pm and 7.30pm as it grew to 60 hectares and continued in a north-easterly direction.
The door-to-door effort came as residents included in earlier bushfire warnings in the region said they had no idea of the emerging bushfire threat and some said they didn’t have fire plans in place.
The town of Cann River, originally part of the bushfire warning, is now not expected to be impacted, the updated warning issued at 4.45pm says.
The bushfire has grown rapidly from 5ha to about 60ha, the CFA says, and is "out of control" and heading rapidly north-east. Nearly two dozen fire trucks had joined three water bombers, three helicopters and a heavy-duty helicopter from Melbourne in fighting the fire.
The new blaze is an outbreak from a larger fire that started at Cann River about a month ago.
A CFA spokeswoman said the original fire had been burning in dense, inaccessible forest.
"A lot of the time, the safest option for everyone is to let it burn itself out," she said.
Fire crews had been monitoring the blaze when it jumped containment lines this afternoon.
Eight CFA strike teams and six aircraft had been dispatched to the fire, the spokeswoman said. DSE crews were assisting.
The fire is in the vicinity of campsites but the spokeswoman said there had so far been no forced evacuations.
Cann River is a small town on the Princes Highway, almost 450 kilometres east of Melbourne. The highway has been closed between Orbost and Cann River.
"This is only about 5 hectares at the moment but with the weather conditions we’ve got, it’s fast moving, it’s the sort of country that burns very, very quickly and with the (wind) change heading towards it, that can be unpredictable fire behaviour that we have to deal with."
Mr Ord said people should avoid the Cann River area and those already in the district "should be getting ready for a fire to potentially come their way".
"Hopefully in the next few hours we can get some kind of containment lines around it," he said.
"It will be difficult. We know there’s a pre-frontal weather system going through and then following that’s a cold front and that’s when the winds get really strong and the fire becomes unpredictable."
State Control Centre spokesman Craig Brownlie said people in the Lower Tonghi areas should enact their fire plans, and tourists should avoid the area.
"Leave now only if the path is clear and you don’t have a bushfire survival plan," he said.
"Tourists in the area are asked to keep clear of these townships as well. The fire is expected to impact the Princes Highway about 5 o’clock this evening."
