RESIDENTS of two East Gippsland hamlets were told to enact their bushfire survival plans on Tuesday after a fast-moving fire ignited in state forest near the town of Cann River.
The first emergency alert about the fire came on the CFA and DSE websites at 2.51pm, warning of a fast-moving fire that was ''out of control''. The bushfire started in undulating bushland about 15 kilometres south-west of Cann River.
Residents were warned that the fire was expected to hit Cann River and the settlement of Lower Tonghi between 5.30pm and 7.30pm.
Authorities closed the Princes Highway in response to the fire and launched an assault on the flames, led by five firefighting aircraft, six bulldozers and about eight tankers.
By late afternoon the threat to Cann River had eased and the warning was modified, stating that the fire was ''not expected to affect Cann River''.
A CFA spokeswoman said late Tuesday night that the combined firefighting effort enabled the fire to be brought under control by 9pm. According to the CFA website, the highway was also reopened about that time.
Stuart Ord, a spokesman for the State Control Centre, said the fire was believed to be a flare-up of a December fire. Soon after 4pm, the fire had burnt 30 hectares and was spotting about 300 metres ahead of the front, driven by southerly winds of about 20-30 km/h.
The emergency warning urged tourists to stay away from the area. While Lower Tonghi is quite small, Cann River is a popular resting place on the Princes Highway for people travelling to far East Gippsland and southern NSW coastal towns.
The East Gippsland fire underlined the threat to Victoria from fires, as East Gippsland was yesterday a ''severe'' bushfire zone, two levels below code red on the new warning system.
On the other side of the Great Dividing Range, the northern and north-eastern regions of Victoria escaped big bushfires, despite being declared code-red zones. Temperatures soared, with Yarrawonga recording a maximum of 43.9 degrees.
Emergency services chiefs yesterday warned that the hot weather had dried out the bush. The foothills of the alps in north-eastern Victoria were particularly dry, the Department of Sustainability and Environment's chief fire officer, Ewan Waller, said.
To bolster resources in the north for the code-red conditions, Mr Waller said extra resources were moved in from the west of the state.
CFA chief officer Russell Rees warned that residents of north and north-eastern Victoria faced an ''incredibly volatile'' weather change overnight and urged them to stay informed of the conditions.
''Our primary requirement today is that people stay aware of what's happening with the weather and do not assume, and do not relax when they get a bit of a wind change and think 'it's here it's over','' he said.
''I believe it is our duty to inform the community of what the conditions are likely to be … yesterday the prediction that was made of the conditions for the Wimmera actually occurred.
''So this business of crying wolf is simply not there. All we had to have was a fire that we couldn't put out immediately and we would be in a very difficult scenario.''
Victorian firefighters responded to more than 120 calls yesterday, similar to Monday's total.
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