The damage toll from the St Patrick’s Day fires has risen to 26 homes and more than 50 sheds as the last of the four major fires has been contained.
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The blaze known as the Terang fire was officially listed as contained about 11pm on Monday, four hours after Hawkesdale, Garvoc and Camperdown fires were listed as under control.
The fires, which started about 9pm in high winds on Saturday night, have destroyed 26 homes, more than 50 dairy and machinery sheds and thousands of livestock, it was revealed on Tuesday.
But the tally could rise as people re-enter devastated areas.
"Crews have continued to do black out work, there was lots of good work done overnight (Monday) and we have another really strong crew on the ground," a Colac incident control centre spokeswoman said.
"There will be a Cobden community meeting at 1pm Wednesday.
"We are also working with the EPA (Environment Protection Authority) to have air monitoring in place.
"There is a lot of good work continuing to be done between the agencies."
She said fewer volunteers were fighting the fires.
"There were over 100 firefighters on deck (Monday) night. Monday there were 300 firefighters but the fire activity has now now subsided," she said.
A Warrnambool incident control centre spokeswoman said the transition into recovery was now happening for the Gazette/Hawkesdale and Garvoc fires.
On Tuesday there were 26 firefighters on the Garvoc fire ground and four tankers and at Hawkesdale 42 firefighters and eight tankers - significantly less than previously due to the reduced fire activity.
As the fire threat eased, residents vented frustration over the time it took for emergency text alerts to be distributed, with reports some were sent two hours after the blazes raged.
Emergency Services Minister James Merlino said the timing of the fires made it difficult to alert residents.
"Alerts are sent out as soon as information is provided, but gathering that information is so much harder in the dead of night," Mr Merlino said.
"It's the visibility, the fact you at the moment can't have aircraft in the air.
“It's much harder on the ground to gather that information in the middle of a fire fight in the evening."