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MELBOURNE - Victorian firefighters are in a race against time to control blazes in the state's east before this weekend's hot weather.
The firefighters have reduced the number of fires still burning in East Gippsland to six from about 18 yesterday, Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Stuart Ord said today.
"A new fire has been reported at Bendoc in the far north part of Gippsland following lightning strikes yesterday afternoon," he said.
"The next few days there will be patches of lightning with rain and moisture and patches that are dry.
"A lot of fires have control lines around them now, though."
Mr Ord said two fires were still causing firefighters concern in the state's east, including the largest bushfire, near Nowa Nowa, that merged with another fire to form a 160-hectare blaze and had yet to be contained.
He said it was likely fires in two or three locations would be merged using back-burning to become a 700-hectare fire, so a consolidated fire line could be set up around it.
The remaining fires, including a 20-hectare fire at Lightning Track near the Snowy River National Park, have not yet been extinguished because they are in inaccessible terrain.
"To tackle this we are also using trained repel crews, who jump out of helicopters, carrying equipment in a backpack who go down a rope and walk to the edge of the fire," Mr Ord said.
He said police were also investigating about six small suspicious fires that had broken out last night and been quickly contained east of Melbourne in the Dandenong Ranges National Park.
Fire crews are mourning the loss of a colleague - a 45-year-old bulldozer operator, father-of-three Steve Jamieson, of Bendoc, who was among personnel tackling fires in Gippsland region, and died when his machine rolled early yesterday.
- AAP
