Motor yachts are covered in orange smoke from raging bushfires in the Gippsland and Alpine regions. Getty Images / Robert Cianflone
MELBOURNE - Victorian firefighters have laboured through the night to reinforce containment lines in preparation for extreme bushfire conditions expected today.
More than 420,000 hectares have been burnt out across the state as 11 bushfires continue to rage out of control in Gippsland and the state's north-east.
The
situation is tipped to worsen today with temperatures tipped to climb into the 30s with wind gusts of up to 50kph.
Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) spokesman Kevin Monk said firefighters had done all they possibly could.
"I think we could always do with more time and even conditions to do backburning but I think we've known this day has been coming ... and I think the crucial work has been done," Mr Monk told AAP.
"I think they're (the conditions) not as extreme as they were on the weekend but the strong winds are always a concern to us, there'll be spotting embers in a lot of communities right around these fires."
More than 4000 firefighters are working to protect property and stop the fires' spread.
Mr Monk said one of the main priorities was strengthening a 60km control line around the Thompson Dam to protect the state's water supply from the Mt Terrible blaze.
Two of the biggest fires merged into one on Tuesday night, creating a mega-fire that now stretches at least 120km in length from Whitfield to Dargo.
After joining, the North East Alpine fires and Darling-Cynthia and Blanket Wood, Mount Hump, Scrubby Creek fires have blacked out 372,000 hectares.
The DSE is predicting those fires will merge with other fires at Mt Ligar and Mt Terrible in the state's east today.
The communities in a big arc from Dargo to Valencia Creek -- those to the south and east of the major bushfires -- are expected to come under most threat.
These areas include Mt Beauty, in the north east, and Dargo, Waterford, Castleburn, Licola and Glencairn in Gippsland.
A threat warning was lifted for Glencairn yesterday, but residents were being told to remain on high alert with fire still within three kilometres of the town.
Urgent threat messages have also been issued for Kevington, Gaffney's Creek and A1 Mine near Jamieson in the north-east.
- AAP
