UPDATE: THE fire burning through Mount Clay State Forest and threatening Narrawong more than doubled in size overnight.
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About 80 firefighters and 61 CFA units worked to control the fire, which spread from 600 hectares at 10pm yesterday to 1549 hectares this morning.
A community meeting was scheduled at 10am at the Narrawong Community Hall.
Heywood Incident Control Centre public information officer Phil O'Keefe said the main priority overnight was protecting houses and communication infrastructure on Mount Clay.
"People still need to remain vigilant and attuned to any updates to messaging," Mr O'Keefe said.
"Today it's invisaged we'll have five fire bombing aircraft.
"The heavy plant consists of seven dozers, three grazers, which will continue to establish control lines.
"During the night we've downgraded our emergency warning at 6am to a 'watch and act'.
"There were no houses destroyed to my knowledge."
The fire has reached 4km from the Narrawong township.
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PROPERTIES on the fringes of Narrawong were under threat from a fast-moving bushfire burning out of control in the Mount Clay State Forest last night.
The occupants of about 20 homes were told to consider leaving ahead of the blaze, believed to be caused by a planned burn over the weekend reigniting.
By 7.30pm up to 80 firefighters from the CFA and Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI) were battling the fire as it escaped the forest onto nearby farms and grassland, fanned by strong north and westerly winds.
A DEPI spokeswoman said an emergency warning was issued just before 5pm to Blackers Road, which borders the forest, while the watch and act warning was in place for the wider area.
“Four aircraft are supporting firefighters working on the ground,” the spokeswoman said.
“The fire is approximately 350 hectares in size. Reinforcements are being brought in to help get it under control.”
The fire is believed to have originated in the Mount Clay State Forest near Golf Course Road south of Heywood just before 3.30pm.
Planned burns were conducted in the area over the weekend and the spokeswoman said it was possible they may have reignited in yesterday’s hot conditions.
“We’ll look at that when it’s safe to do so, but at the moment our focus is on getting this fire out,” she said.
Community meetings were held at the Narrawong Hall and Portland Civic Centre last night and a relief centre has been set up at the Portland Civic Centre.
Across the south-west the mercury spiked over 35 degrees, including 36.9 in Mortlake and 36.1 in Port Fairy.
Wind gusts topped 60km/h at noon at Warrnambool airport, where the temperature peaked at 35.6 shortly before 5pm.
Near Tower Hill one man was lucky to keep his Princes Highway home after a scrub fire believed to have started by a discarded cigarette butt.
Passing motorists spotted the flames and alerted Shane Cowell, who was behind the house.
With the help of the motorists he had the fire under control in under 10 minutes, stopping it from spreading into nearby paddocks.