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MELBOURNE - Victoria is in the grip of the one of the worst bushfire crises in the state's history, Premier Steve Bracks has warned.
One house was destroyed last night in a fresh blaze sparked by lightning near Steiglitz in the Brisbane Ranges, west of Melbourne, with seven others destroyed by the Tatong bushfire at Toombullup, near Benalla in Victoria's north-east.
The same fire cut the main electricity inter-connector between Victoria and NSW, plunging hundreds of thousands of houses into darkness and affecting hundreds of traffic signals and suburban train services.
"The Tatong fire is the main area of concern. It grew to 27,000 hectares overnight from about 20,000 hectares yesterday afternoon and we lost seven houses at Toombullup," Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) emergency control centre spokesman Pat Groenhout said.
"It's still going very actively and putting a ot of pressure on to the south."
Residents in Burders Road, north-east of Toombullup, are under immediate attack from the fire front.
Ember attack is expected around Stringybark Creek Road and Graveyard Road, north-west of Tolmie, while residents of Toombullup, Tolmie, Archerton and areas north of Toombullup can expect embers and spot fires in coming hours.
In the far east, the Great Divide South fire has expanded east towards the Great Alpine Road, threatening the tiny mountain communities of Brookville, Doctors Flat and Swifts Creek, near Omeo.
A fire at Hermit Mountain, south-east of Corryong in the Upper Murray Valley, has grown to 840 hectares and remains out of control.
The Steiglitz fire has spread to 250 hectares.
Lightning started several other blazes overnight and were expected to spark other fires, Mr Groenhout said.
"We expect that we will see a few more as the day progresses and the conditions warm up, so we're looking to jump on those as quickly as possible with water bombers and crews and to get containment lines around them," he said.
"We've got basically hot conditions right through to the weekend now.
"We expect the winds to ease somewhat and humidity to increase but with those warmer temperatures humidity would have to increase a fair bit to give us much relief.
"It will be very difficult for us to get containment lines in and to do something active about these very large fires burning in dry conditions."
'Worst bushfire episodes'
Premier Steve Bracks has cut short his holiday and returned to work after the blackouts yesterday.
Today, Mr Bracks attended a briefing with Emergency Services Commissioner Bruce Esplin and Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon.
The meeting was told the next three days were critical and conditions were expected to be even worse on Saturday than they were yesterday, when eight houses were lost and temperatures soared into the 40s, Mr Bracks said.
"When I came back in this morning and had the briefing and learned that Saturday was going to be worse than yesterday, it just sends shivers up your spine because we all saw how bad yesterday was," he said.
"I think it will go down as one of our worst bushfire episodes in Victoria ever, and that's saying something in the state that had the 1939 fires, the 1983 fires and even the 2002/03 fires.
"This is the worst bushfire conditions we have ever had in Victoria's history because it is going to go on and it is going to get worse.
"We have never encountered this in Victoria before.
"This is 48 days ... of fire activity and one million hectares which have been burnt, and of course we are bracing ourselves for some very, very tough conditions."
- AAP
