Victoria Police say the fires engulfing the eastern part of Victoria are not being treated as the work of arsonists, as claimed by a widespread social media campaign.

In the past week, a Twitter hashtag #ArsonEmergency – mimicking the popular #BushfireEmergency hashtag – attracted thousands of tweets linking the fires to arsonists and casting doubt on the role of climate change in exacerbating the bushfires' severity.

But authorities have moved to dispel those claims.

"Police are aware of a number of posts circulating in relation to the current bushfire situation, however currently there is no intelligence to indicate that the fires in East Gippsland and north-east Victoria have been caused by arson or any other suspicious behaviour," a police spokeswoman said.

The CFA incident controller in Bairnsdale, Brett Mitchell, backed up that statement on Thursday, saying that none of the recent fires in the East Gippsland area have been started by arson.