Cooler conditions have helped firefighters make gains on two suspicious bushfires sparked during Victoria's extreme hot weather.
A bushfire at Rosedale in Gippsland remains out of control but its movement northeast slowed and its warning level was scaled back to advice on Saturday afternoon.
"Firefighters are continuing to construct control lines, and works are ongoing to control the fire," the State Control Centre said in a statement.
A blaze in Strathbogie, which was also the subject of an earlier watch-and-act warning, was brought under control and downgraded to an advice message.
The fires have been deemed suspicious because they started on Friday when there were no instances of dry lightning.
At one stage the Rosedale fire turned on about 40 firefighters in a predicted wind change.
Three groups of firefighters from the CFA and Forest Fire Management were working on the eastern flank of the fire on Friday when the wind change occurred, Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp told reporters on Saturday.
The flank became the fire front and raged towards the firefighters, who came out shaken but uninjured by the experience.
However a fire truck, trailer and bulldozer belonging to Forest Fire Management were burnt out.
There will now be a review into how the firefighters came to be in harm's way.
"They found themselves in a very serious situation and they were shaken as a result of it," Mr Crisp said.
"I have spoken to both the chiefs of those organisations, but they're safe and well and they are being well looked after and we need to and we will learn from this."
Mr Crisp said it was too soon to say if any people were in the truck when it was burnt.
The Rosedale fire has burnt more than 10,000 hectares including a significant amount of pine plantations.
So far fencing has been the only private property to be destroyed, authorities say, but there are concerns for native animals in the area.
About 200 fires were sparked across Victoria on Friday, a day when temperatures reached 46C in some parts before a sudden cool change in the afternoon which brought about strong winds.
State Response Controller Tim Wiebusch said the cooler weather should help the firefighting effort.
"Both wind speeds or relative humidity is now less of a factor than it has been for the last few days and so, the conditions really are quite benign for us and that leads to being able to round the fires up quite well in the next two to three days," he told reporters.
Australian Associated Press
