Emergency authorities are bracing for further property losses after a function centre and farm house was destroyed by a bushfire raging in Victoria’s north-west.
The rail line between South Australia and Victoria was also closed, before the emergency warning for Dimboola and nearby Wail was downgraded on Tuesday afternoon.
Residents in Dimboola, which was in the path of the fire, were placed under a “watch and act” warning on Tuesday afternoon, after residents were previously told it was too late to leave. A further three “watch and act” warnings remain for areas in the Little Desert national park and the Grampians national park.
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, on Tuesday morning said emergency authorities expected there could be further property losses in Dimboola given the “ferocity of the fire”.
Allan said the main building and a number of cabins at Little Desert Nature Lodge in Nhill, west of Dimboola, had already been destroyed.
She said the town, with a population of 1635, faced a very serious and real risk.”
“That fire has taken off, it’s taken off really, really quickly. In just a matter of hours the size of that fire spread to 64,500 hectares,” she said.
Emergency authorities confirmed a farm house west of Dimboola had been lost, and a second farm house might have been affected.
Dimboola residents evacuated to a relief centre in Horsham, a 35-minute drive away, Allan said.
Monica Revell, the chief executive of the Hindmarsh Shire council, said about 250 to 260 people had passed through the relief centre after it was established on Monday night.
About 50 people remained at the centre on Tuesday afternoon, Revell said.
Revell said the loss of the Little Desert Nature Lodge was “devastating for the community”.
The venue’s camp director, Rabbi Moshe Kahn, said the lodge – owned by the Chabad Jewish youth organisation – was completely destroyed. The venue had run retreats for young people, and hosted school camps and weddings for almost 50 years.
Kahn told Guardian Australia the lodge hosted camps that focused on getting people to “connect to nature.”
“It’s incredible bushland and peaceful. You hear the birds chirping. So it’s it’s definitely something which is pretty surreal, pretty crazy, in terms of that it was there 24 hours ago, and now it’s gone,” he said.
“You really felt wonder there.”
Cat Clarke, who runs a restaurant at the Dimboola golf club, evacuated on Monday night and understood the venue was still standing.
Clarke said she was “devastated” thinking of the impact of the fire on the wildlife and animals at the Little Desert national park.
The Dimboola fire was sparked by dry lightning at Little Desert national park on Monday, State Control Centre spokesperson Luke Heagerty said.
“The fire grew to such a size and was carrying such energy with it yesterday that it made it quite difficult for any containment to occur,” Heagerty said.
He said it appears the fire had spread from public land to private property near the Wimmera River, close to the Dimboola golf course.
An emergency warning had earlier been issued for people in Strachans, Victoria Point and Victoria Valley in the Grampians national park in the state’s west, an area popular with holidaymakers.
That blaze was about 180 hectares, in an area that has a mix of private property and campsites.
Heagerty said crews were expected to be battling the fires for several weeks.
“We can also have scenarios where dry lightning starts a fire in a tree stump, for example, it might not show up for another week or two,” he said.
“We’re probably expecting that we’re going to be fairly busy out of what we saw moved through the state yesterday.”
A cool change has swept through Victoria after Monday’s dry, gusty conditions however Heagerty said crews are still expecting “variable” conditions for the rest of Tuesday.
