Army helicopters have been used to help dozens of people escape the fierce fire threat in Victoria, where more than 100 properties have been razed and towns remained at risk overnight.

Key points: About 50 people were flown out of Omeo as fire menaced the town

About 50 people were flown out of Omeo as fire menaced the town Communities in the state's north-east are facing a night of dangerous bushfire conditions

Communities in the state's north-east are facing a night of dangerous bushfire conditions For the latest information, visit the Vic Emergency website

Strong winds are continuing to push fires towards communities in Victoria's north-east and East Gippsland, where six people remain missing.

Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said at least 110 properties and 220 outbuildings had been lost — but the full scale of the damage is not yet known after thousands of people fled threatened communities.

"There's still many, many communities that we've not been able to really get into and do a proper assessment," he said.

Premier Daniel Andrews said the number of people missing had been revised down from 21 to six, but the state was by "no means out of this".

The number of properties destroyed by the bushfires is expected to rise. ( AAP: James Ross )

"Our biggest concern at the moment is very significant fire activity in the north-east of the state," Premier Daniel Andrews said this evening.

"We have about 1,000 firefighters on the fire ground."

In the East Gippsland town of Omeo, residents have described seeing the sky turn red, and then black, as a fire front hit.

Around 50 people were evacuated using Army helicopters as residents huddled on a sports oval.

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Local Brian Hadden said it had been "a hell of a day".

"I can see lots of wind and hell of a lot of smoke," he told ABC Gippsland this afternoon.

"Where I am at the Omeo Recreation Reserve, there is about six or seven big choppers, army and police."

Residents in Omeo are fighting spot fires as a large bushfire moves towards them. ( Supplied: Natalie O'Connell )

Follow our live blog for the latest updates on bushfires.

Alpine and border towns face overnight threat

Just to the west, bushfires are threatening Alpine communities at Dinner Plain, Mount Hotham, Falls Creek and Bright, with hot temperatures persisting into the night.

Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said there was a risk fires that had threatened Harrietville and Wandiligong could flare and impact the popular tourist town of Bright as well.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 33 seconds 33 s Bushfires are raging in Victoria's Alpine region.

"So we are doing what we can, but keeping a very close eye on that particular fire and the potential impact into those valleys," he said.

Close to the border, Commissioner Crisp said the destructive blaze that hit the outskirts of Corryong earlier in the week was being pushed back towards the town, as well as Tintaldra and Towong.

He said property losses in those towns were likely as the Victorian blaze came together with another fire burning parallel to it over the NSW border.

The blaze which destroyed homes at Corryong was swept towards Towong by an afternoon wind change. ( Supplied: Ilma Clarke )

Many residents from that region evacuated to Tallangatta, Wangaratta and Wodonga on Friday.

On Saturday, Australian Defence Force members ran further evacuations from Tallangatta to take people further back from the fire zone.

Authorities fear blazes that tore through Victoria's north-east could merge with fires in NSW. ( Supplied: Amber Rendell )

Authorities said forecast "firestorm conditions which may not be survivable" were playing out, with a "significant" increase in fire activity.

Cooler temperatures which swept East Gippsland are taking longer to reach the north-east, with Albury still sitting at 41C at 6:00pm.

The Murray Valley Highway has been closed because of the risk of it being hit by fire.

Euroa bushfire threatens Hume Freeway

Firefighters were further stretched in the afternoon when a new blaze broke out near Euroa, south-west of Wangaratta, and began to head towards the Hume Freeway.

A large air tanker dropped fire retardant on the Euroa service centre in the path of the blaze and some freeway lanes were closed.

About 50 trucks and aircraft were sent to Euroa and the spread of the fire was slowed, but authorities warned that could change at any time overnight.

The freeway is one of Victoria's biggest roads, linking Melbourne to the north-east of the state and on to Sydney.

Southbound lanes of the freeway at Euroa will remain closed overnight, with traffic detoured through the town before a hazard assessment can be done on Sunday.

Omeo residents shelter together, Cann River cut off

Before the helicopter evacuations from Omeo began, Sandy Beltrame from the Omeo Caravan Park said about 150 people were sheltering at the local recreation reserve as she and other residents prepared to defend their homes.

"How am I feeling at the moment? I've got my big girl pants on, and my big girl shirt over the top of it and a broad brim hat and lots of hoses ready to go," she said.

Authorities had been warning communities across Victoria's declared disaster zone to evacuate the area before the weekend amid fears the extreme weather would make bushfires unstoppable.

This afternoon, five evacuation notices and more than a dozen emergency warnings were in place in the state's east and north-east.

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Mr Gillham said residents at Cann River, who were urged to evacuate this week, were "essentially isolated" now as fire moved towards them from the east.

"We have been in there with the Australian Defence Force aircraft and we have also conveyed people out of Cann River but it is essentially an isolated community, the road is completely blocked by fallen trees," he told ABC Gippsland.

Cann River has been bathed in an orange glow as fires move towards the town. ( Facebook: Alison Rainey )

Ember attack at Club Terrace

Club Terrace is another community where residents have been cut off by trees on roads.

This afternoon, ABC Radio Melbourne caller Graham said the sky had turned red there, and he and other residents were waiting to fight fires as the area came under ember attack.

"It's been completely blacked out and red again. But all we can see near us is a few flare-ups," he said.

About 50 firefighters from the United States are preparing to join the battle against the East Gippsland bushfires, which authorities estimate have torn through more than 700,000 hectares of land.

The skies above Mallacoota have turned red as the town again faces a bushfire threat. ( Supplied: Sean Rainey )

Forest Fire Management Victoria's deputy chief fire officer Beth Roberts said authorities were working to juggle both firefighting and relief as they responded to the "unprecedented" bushfire emergency across East Gippsland.

"While we are absolutely concentrating on response, it is important for us to be looking at immediate relief and recovery," she said.

Late this afternoon, cooler temperatures reached East Gippsland. It dropped to 17 degrees Celsius at Mount Nowa Nowa and 20C at Orbost, a dramatic drop from 40C earlier in the day.

'Lots of embers falling out of the sky' in Mallacoota

Days after Mallacoota was cut off by bushfires, prompting the evacuation of more than 900 people by sea, the sky has turned black once again.

The town was devastated by fire on New Year's Eve. Mallacoota resident Sean Rainey said gusty winds were now pushing a fire, burning on the other side of the lake, to the south.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 28 seconds 28 s Day has turned to night again in Mallacoota as fires flare around the town. (Supplied: Erin Lehman)

"I guess a whole lot of smoke has gone up and covered the sky," he said.

"It took about 15 minutes to go from pretty much deep yellow to blood red and pretty much black.

"You know there's lots of embers falling out of the sky, but they're pretty much burnt up and, yeah, we're told … it is pretty safe."

Amy Houghton, who is waiting to be evacuated from Mallacoota along with her two-year-old son and her 92-year-old grandmother, said air evacuations planned for Saturday afternoon had been cancelled due to the smoke.

Amy Houghton told the ABC she was "feeling OK" but wanted to get her grandmother out of smoke-filled Mallacoota as soon as possible. ( Supplied: Amy Houghton )

Erin Lehman, who is also waiting to be evacuated along with her three children, said the situation was still "a bit scary" as the sky moved from darkness to orange and back to darkness.

"The smoke's horrendous and that's my concern with my kids," she said.

"What's going to be the long term effects on their health being exposed to all this smoke for extended periods of time.

"It's quite difficult trying to keep a mask on a four-year-old and a two-year-old."

Meanwhile, authorities said a relief centre at Sale, west of the fires, was beginning to overflow and encouraged those who could to drive further west to the Latrobe Valley town of Morwell.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 1 minute 30 seconds 1 m 30 s A Mallacoota evacuee's mobile phone footage shows a town devastated by bushfire.

Fuel won't arrive in time to keep power on in Mallacoota, Omeo

Several bushfire-affected communities have already lost power and phone connections and authorities have warned generators in Mallacoota and Omeo are running out of power.

Ausnet said fuel they had hoped would reach the East Gippsland towns had not arrived, and it was estimated the generators had between 12 and 36 hours of power left.

People in Mallacoota have described an "eerie" atmosphere as a red haze descends on the town. ( Twitter: Brendan )

"Obviously charge your communication devices, charge your backup power packs and anything you need to do to stay healthy and well," Ausnet's Steve Brown told ABC Gippsland.

"The ADF [Australian Defence Force] has got a lot on their plate at the moment, so we probably aren't going to get those fuel deliveries in time to keep the generators going unfortunately. "

Generators have been installed in Corryong to restore power to the bushfire-hit community. ( ABC News: Matt Doran )

Meanwhile, Telstra said of roughly 25 mobile tower sites hit by bushfires across eastern Victoria, about 15 had been restored.

Technicians had been unable to get to Cudgewa and Bonang so had been working with emergency services to deliver satellite phones to those places.

The Alpine community of Dartmouth was told it would lose power from 7:00pm and the town was experiencing power surges during the afternoon.