Update 5pm: Twenty-eight CFA volunteers from across District 16 are heading to East Gippsland on a three-day deployment.
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Among them is Stawell brigade captain Grant Wells, who told the Mail-Times there were four volunteers from Stawell and five from Ararat in the strike team.
"We are going to be based in Orbost fighting the bushfire there," he said. "It has burned to the edge of the town close to the Princess Highway and populated areas. Guys from Beaufort, Skipton, St Arnaud and Snake Valley also put their hands up to be on this deployment."
Ararat brigade captain Rob Starrick said the group would return on Sunday. He said most of his volunteers going to Gippsland had been on at least one other deployment, some of them to fight bushfires in New South Wales late last year.
"We have a total fire ban on Friday so we have to man our town as well," he said. "If we get a call for a strike team to go to Lexton or the Horsham area we have one ready for that too."
2pm: "THERE is no let up. The smoke in the eyes is quite stinging and you can't get away from it."
This is the assessment of John Robinson, a Wimmera Country Fire Authority volunteer charged with running the airbase at Mallacoota in Victoria's far east.
The isolated coastal town near the New South Wales border has been ravaged by one of several bushfires burning out of control in the Gippsland region
Cr Robinson, of Horsham Rural City, said on Thursday the town and airfield were completely covered in smoke. He said he was one of six CFA volunteers from District 17 shipped to Bairnsdale on Boxing Day.
"As officers in the Incident Control Centre there, we were tasking helicopters and fixed wing aircraft in response to calls from the firefighters on the ground and to our own aerial observations," he said.
"They then sent me by police helicopter (to Mallacoota) on Wednesday, because they had no knowledge of the condition of the airport, to work out what resources and infrastructure would be required should the need arise to move a substantial number of people out of the area.
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"All sides of the airport have been burnt, and trees are still smouldering."
Cr Robinson said when he arrived in Mallacoota, "up to 3000" people were on a beach to get away from the fire.
"A lot of houses have been destroyed and I had to drive around fire to get into town from the airport," he said.
Cr Robinson said some groups of people were "determined to stay" despite the fires.
"You talk to some tourist operators and a lot of them would like to go - I guess they're looking at the weather charts for the next three days," he said.
"I think the other sense is if a lot of the tourists left that would give the locals more chance to start some of the recovery process, so there are mixed feelings.
"The conundrum here is lots of people here are tourists and if they leave here they leave behinds tents and cars, and they will have to get back at some stage to recover them."
Cr Robinson said he expected to leave Mallacoota by helicopter on Friday.
CFA District 17 Operations Officer Alfred Mason said another contingent of volunteers from the region would leave for Gippsland on Monday. He said how many was yet to be determined.
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