Race to control Budj Bim National Park fire ahead of Friday's hot weather

The bushfire is travelling from Budj Bim-Mt Eccles National Park in a south-westerly direction towards Tyrendarra.

The alert is for communities including Ardonachie, Bessiebelle, Breakaway Creek, Broadwater, Condah Mission, Homerton, Knebsworth, Lake Condah, Milltown, Tyrendarra.

Emergency services advise communities that "leaving now is the safest option, conditions may change and get worse very quickly".

Friday, update 8.30am: EMERGENCY services have issued a "watch and act" message for Breakaway Creek, Lake Condah, as the Budj Bim fire continues to be out-of-control.

Fire activity is taking the bushfire from north-west corner of Budj Bim National Park in a westerly direction towards Lake Condah Road.

Authorities have recommended monitoring changes to the situation. Increased wind speed, change in wind direction, smoke or poor visibility can indicate the situation is changing.

If you are away from home, do not return.`

Thursday, update 9.25pm:

The Budj Bim fire is not yet under control.

Emergency services are advising residents in Ardonachie, Bessiebelle, Breakaway Creek, Broadwater, Homerton, Lake Condah, Macarthur, Knebsworth, Condah South and Condah Mission to monitor warnings and act quickly it the situation changes.

There is no threat to communities currently.

Firefighters are responding to the fire.

Update 1:13pm:

The Budj Bim fire was now in the crater of the national park and it is the first time Macarthur CFA captain Tom Fleetwood can remember it being there.

"To my knowledge it's not been down in the crater before. We've been in the area for quite a few years and not seen the fire there," Mr Fleetwood said.

"We've seen fire in the bush itself, but certainly not in this area"

He said two strike teams were mopping up and blacking out in the area so nothing sparks over into unburnt country.

Mr Fleetwood said they would also possibly get helicopters to dump some loads on to the inaccessible area in the crater.

"With the help of DEWLP we'll hopefully knock it on the head," he said.

Update 12:20pm:

Firefighters have been unable to throw the resources into fighting the Budj Bim blaze that they usually would because of stretched resources across the state, a meeting in Macarthur was told on Thursday.

About 200 people attended the community meeting at Macarthur Community Hall.

Forest Fire Management Victoria deputy incident controller Mark Mellington said the fire was in "really rough rock country".

"We had a plan to try and contain it with ground crews working on it ... unfortunately as the day progressed we were managing to slow the fire but at no stage were we really able to contain it," he said.

"Most people would be aware the state and the eastern seaboard are in a challenging situation with fires up and down the eastern seaboard.

"Resources have been pretty stretched within CFA and Forest Fire Management.

"We have not been able to throw the resources at this fire that we typically would because there aren't additional resources outside the district.

"Having said that, we have used a lot of aircraft, we still have four fixed-wing bombers attached to this fire and two helicopters bombing it.

"Going forward, the fire has a variety of containment lines."

Earlier: Firefighters are in a race against time to get the Budj Bim National Park blaze under control before Friday's hot weather hits.

Just under 2000 hectares of the park has been burnt, but strike crews were able to save the campground area and prevent the fire reaching any structures around edge of the park.

About 250 personnel and nine aircraft were battling the blaze which was started by a lightning strike late Monday.

Incident controller Bernie Fradd said the fire had grown significantly over the last few days and the national park would be closed to the public for some time.

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"There's a lot of fire in there, there's going to be a lot more before we're able to have any confidence that we can keep it within the park area," Mr Fradd said.

"We're very concerned about the Budj Bim/Mount Eccles fire.

"There's a lot of control lines that need work and a lot of burning out and it all needs to be done in the next 24 to 28 hours before the hot weather on Friday."

The fire has burnt around the northern edge of the crater of Lake Surprise and through the popular Natural Bridge area of the park.

Mr Fradd said CFA strike teams and DEWLP teams worked into the evening to save the campground area.

"They did some really good work to protect that campground," he said. "It's burnt to and around the campground.

"There was a bit of luck and a bit of hard work. They've done a great job."

Mr Fradd said the fire had got out into a "little bit" of private property on the north edge on the Macarthur side, "but that was rounded up fairly quickly".

"There's been a lot of work with grater tracks, some burning out to try and protect that farm land to the north."

Farmer Terry Sim said fire crews had done a remarkable job to pull up the fire when it broke out of the park about 1km west of his property which is near a scoria pit.

"I'll be eternally grateful, and so will my neighbours, that they were able to do that," Mr Sim said.

Mr Fradd said that at this stage there had been no reported losses of any structures.

"With the milder conditions today we've been able to slow the spread of the fire and the watch and act has been downgraded throughout the night. It's just an advice now," he said.

"We've got crews out there wetting down hot spots and treating hazardous trees and trying to strengthen containment lines.

"There's a significant amount of work that's needed to strengthen these containment lines so we can possibly do some burning if we get resources to try and contain this to within the park and stones area."

Mr Fradd said that with expected mild weather over the next 24 hours, they were not expecting the fire to get out into farmland today.

"We're hopeful with the cooler southerlies that we'll be able to do a fair bit of work on this and try and consolidate it so we can burn overnight and just protect the farmland," he said.

The Budj Bim blaze was the only fire in the south-west that was not under control.

"When we say they're under control, there's still a lot of fire in the landscape," he said.

"If we get some hot weather tomorrow, which is expected, they could well escape again but at this stage we're hopeful they won't."

The efforts to keep the Lake Condah fire from spreading to the national park on Monday in hot and windy conditions were virtually all for nothing after a lightning strike in the middle of the park sparked the blaze, he said.

"They did great work on the Condah Track fire and held that which was a very good job but then some lightning came through and it was all for nought in the end," he said.

"It's just frustrating, really really frustrating."

Winds on Friday are not expected to be as bad as the last few hot days, but it would be traditional summer day with hot northerly and a change later in the day, Mr Fradd said.

He said he couldn't imagine the popular tourist and camping spot would be open in the short-term with lots of hazardous trees.

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