A response “nothing short of excellent” by more than 20 CFA crews stopped a grass fire at Glenormiston South from spreading in terrible conditions, emergency services say.

The fire, on land bordered by Glenormiston Road, Wallaces Lane and Castle Carey Road, started about 3pm and burnt about 31 hectares of land, an unoccupied house and a hay shed containing hundreds of bales.

Around 3.30pm, residents of areas including Glenormiston, Noorat and Kolora were urged to stay indoors and warned they were in danger and needed to act to protect themselves.

The fire was one of the biggest in Victoria as it sweltered through a day that reached 45.2 degrees in some areas, with 139 fires burning across the state.

Emergency Victoria incident controller Mark Gunning said when the cool change came through, firefighters tackling the blaze at Glenormiston South had to deal with winds up to 90 km/h.

“We had crews on scene within a few minutes of the call and to stop it this side of Castle Carey Road is great,” Mr Gunning said.

“We had a bit of luck, we had two bombers that had been sent to Warrnambool that we didn’t use there that got diverted here pretty quick.”

Mr Gunning said the CFA crews had established the house was vacant, and had to decide whether to save the house.

“To control the fire was the correct option,” he said.

The source of the fire’s ignition is being investigated.

Twenty-three tankers and five aircraft responded to the fire, including three water-bombing craft and two reconnaissance aircraft.

CFA Camperdown group officer Chris Place said all 11 brigades in the group were manned, which was common across the region and helped crews execute a swift, efficient response to the fire.

“They were here in minutes and that was crucial,” he said.

“You’d hope all of our planning and the brigades’ professionalism helped.

“A wind change occurred not long after the first tankers got there and sent it the other way, which made it a little bit difficult and smoke in 45-50 km/h wind made it very difficult

“The helicopters attacked the head and allowed us to get our trucks into the head of the fire.

“The fact that all of those brigades were manned and turned out quickly has made all the world of difference.”

Right next door – ‘we could actually see the flames down on the road’

Neighbours described seeing flames in paddocks across from their houses when the grass fire at Glenormiston South was fuelled by strong winds ahead of a cool change.

Couple Maree and Graham Whan, who live in Kennas Lane, were alerted to the presence of the fire by their daughter through the Vic Emergency app.

“She rang me and we came out and we could actually see flames down on the road, which was a bit scary,” Ms Whan said.

She said the wind was blowing the fire away from their house.

“We knew it had been reported and then it was five, maybe ten minutes before a truck arrived, which is Noorat, our closest,” Ms Whan said.

“They went down and we could sort of see the flames.

She said another 10 to 20 minutes later more tankers started arriving, and then the wind changed and took the fire further away from the couple’s house.

Mr Whan said they had had “grave concerns” for their neighbours in the fire’s path once the wind changed.

The couple experienced the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983 when they were living in Garvoc.

“That was really, really scary,” Ms Whan said.

“At least today it was going away from us.”

Couple Frances and Paul Bryant, residents in the same street, said they were alerted to the fire by their next door neighbours around 3pm.

“He said that they’d seen some flames down there and they’d called triple 0, but someone else must have as well because they were already on their way,” Ms Bryant said.

She said the experience was “a bit nerve-wracking” but they were not too worried because the fire was travelling in the opposite direction from their house.

“It was a little bit unsettling,” Ms Bryant said.