Residents of Grampians told it's too late to leave ahead of bushfire front Residents in the Grampians region have been advised to leave before conditions become too dangerous. Crews battling the remnants of a blaze on O'Briens Rd, Trafalgar, caused by a lightning strike. pic by Alex Coppel Source: News Limited BUILDINGS have been lost in Victoria's Grampians region and popular holiday town Halls Gap is set to be evacuated, as the state experiences some of its worst fire conditions since Black Saturday. An emergency warning has been issued for residents in Brimpaen, Wartook, Heathvale, Laharum, Cherrypool, Glenisla and Glenisla Crossing with spot fires and ember attacks from massive northern Grampians fire occurring in the area. Residents have been told it's too late to leave. The fire has already impacted Heathvale and Wartook, with the Troopers Creek Tavern and the Happy Wanderers Holiday Resort among buildings damaged, the CFA says. CFA chief officer Euan Ferguson said Halls Gap is seriously under threat and a plan to evacuate would be discussed at a community meeting in the town today. "An action plan for that meeting will be that emergency services will be ordering an evacuation of Halls Gap and shortly after the meeting there will be an emergency alert issued," he said. Mr Ferguson said the alert would be from the mobile telephone alert system. "That's in preparation for a wind change which is expected some time later today," he said. Halls Gap is seriously under threat when the wind change occurs later today. I think the key issue with Halls Gap is a lot of campers, holiday makers, people who are staying in residential accommodation. BUSHFIRE: Black memories rekindled as states burn Police and other emergency services will be door knocking to ensure people are out of the area. The Grampians fires increased dramatically overnight to 11,300 hectares. Horsham mayor David Grimble, who lives at Wartook, said assets had been lost in the area. "As far as fire conditions go, they're probably the worst we can have," he told Fairfax Radio. We would have some asset loss, there's no question about that. ``We'd certainly have some stock loss and some fencing loss, but what exactly has been lost, I don't have a good handle on that. Brimpaen resident Steve Price said he had been up all night with his 77-year-old father trying to save his wilderness cabin accommodation. "It was a lot of hard work and we did it and my dad and I hung in," he told Fairfax Radio. The size of it and the scale of it, the heat and the fuel, we were very lucky to have got through it. Lightning sparked 25 new fires across Victoria overnight. Fires in the state's northwest are expected to burn out of national parks and into private land on today. Temperatures are expected to reach 44C in Melbourne, the fourth day in-a-row above 40 degrees. The mercury will also reach 44C in Horsham near the Grampians, with the chance of a late storm. Horsham was already 35.6C by 9am with winds gusting to 33km/h. A total fire ban has been declared for the entire state, with extreme fire conditions forecast for the Wimmera and southwest regions. Fire conditions are rated severe in all other regions except East Gippsland, where they are rated very high. In South Australia, sixteen fires are burning as crews face the worst day for fire risk on day five of the state's heatwave. An emergency warning is in place for fires in the Ngarkat Conservation Park near the Victorian border and four homesteads in the area have been evacuated. The Country Fire Service (CFS) on Friday said a fire at Bangor, near Port Germain, north of Adelaide, continues to pose the biggest threat out of the 16 fires. The CFS says the blaze is burning out of control, prompting an emergency warning with locals urged to activate their bushfire survival plans. "Currently we have 700 firefighters, 200 appliances supported by 80 farm fire units deployed across the state as well as a large number of Incident Management personnel managing these incidents," a spokesman said. Bushfire Advice Messages have been issued for fires at Kiana on the Lower Eyre Peninsula, Billiatt north of Lameroo, Yumbarra Conservation Park due north of Ceduna and the Gawler Ranges National Park north of Wudinna. About 100,000 hectares of grass, scrub and bushland have been burnt across the state. The CFS says Friday's continued high temperatures and increased wind moving through the state may hamper firefighting efforts on the firegrounds. The fire risk includes a band of expected thunderstorms which could result in thousands of lightning strikes. Firebombing aircraft will continue to be used across the state including the addition five resources sourced from Queensland, NSW and Victoria. In Queensland, firefighters continue to monitor a grass fire that has threatened homes on the Darling Downs. The fire took hold yesterday, south of the town of Millmerran. At one stage it threatened homes in the Wattle Ridge area, but crews were able to contain it. Fire and emergency services Superintendent Lindsay Hackett says two waterbombing aircraft are on standby if the fire flares up again. "Through the night we've had crews doing containment of that fire," he told the ABC. He said today's weather conditions would determine if the fire remained under control, with wind gusts of up to 30km/h.