Houses have been lost as fires threaten several townships and burn near power stations and plantations in Victoria's Latrobe Valley.
Fire has moved to the edge of the western urban area of Morwell, into plantation areas and impacting on two open cut coalmines.
Some homes about half a kilometre out of Morwell have been lost, incident controller Laurie Jeremiah said.
"We have had some houses burnt. We are yet to confirm occupants, but we have been giving the emergency warnings for a number of hours now, so we hope those people took the appropriate action," Mr Jeremiah said.
Emergency warnings were in place for several Latrobe Valley townships on Sunday night including Morwell, Driffield, Hazelwood, Glengarry West, Morwell North, Tyers and Yallourn North.
Authorities say there is a blaze in the Hazelwood open cut coalmine and fire is also around the Yallourn open cut mine.
Fire authorities were also concerned about the 1600-megawatt Hazelwood Power Station.
"There is one substation that is under threat, so we have a number of resources on that dealing with it, but my understanding is that it is still functional," Mr Jeremiah said.
Hazelwood owner GDF Suez Australian Energy said the power station was not under threat.
The fire reached the northern upper levels of the Hazelwood mine but it was in an area some distance from its normal coal operations.
"The fire is in an old worked-out area of the mine which is a considerable distance from our current mining operations," GDF Suez spokesman Trevor Rowe told ABC TV.
He said the concern was a fire outside the mining area in Driffield, which was closer to the coal mining operating area.
"It hasn't come into that area at this stage but both the CFA and our people are keeping a close eye on that particular fire."
Latrobe City Council chief executive John Mitchell said the Morwell West fire was threatening towns around Glengarry and Tyers and heading west of the Maryvale paper mill complex and softwood plantation.
"There's a risk that fire could cause more serious concern," he told ABC TV.
At the Yallourn Power Station the fire is burning in grassy areas near the open cut mine.
Morwell, about 150 kilometres from Melbourne, has a population of about 14,000.
About 200 people had registered for relief centres in Traralgon and Morwell by early Sunday evening, about half being residents and the rest people trying to get through the area.
