Grampians fire 'almost contained'

Favourable weather has helped authorities contain the fire in Victoria's Grampians National Park, but another fire has broken containment lines.

The massive bushfire burning in Victoria's Grampians region is almost contained, but another fire in the area has broken containment lines.

Favourable weather conditions allowed fire crews to make significant progress on the northern Grampians fire overnight on Sunday, strengthening containment lines and completing backburning.

The 52,000-hectare fire, which threatened the tourist town of Halls Gap on Friday and has destroyed 10 homes, should be contained later on Monday, fire authorities say.

Incident Controller Andrew Morrow said crews had worked overnight on establishing and strengthening containment lines and back burning around the Mt Difficult Range near Halls Gap.

"More favourable weather conditions have allowed us to undertake these works and thanks to the hard work of our ground crews we are now at a stage where this fire is about just about contained," Mr Morrow said.

"We expect the fire will be fully contained today following some additional consolidation works which is great news for Grampians communities moving in to the recovery stage."

A separate fire burning in the area at Black Range, Bunjils Cave Road south-west of Stawell crossed containment lines on Sunday and moved towards the Bunjils Cave Road to Burrong Basin Road area.

"The focus has been on a direct attack of the northern part of the fire and consolidating containment lines to provide protection to the township of Stawell," Mr Morrow said.

Crews worked on establishing a control line overnight and a containment line around a speedway complex, he said.

Residents of the Wartook Valley were escorted back to their homes on Sunday, with Roses Gap and Dadswells Bridge residents expected to be allowed to go home on Monday.

The Halls Gap water treatment plant was turned off as a result of the fires and authorities are urging people in the area to boil their water until further notice.


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Source: AAP


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