Victorian bushfires LIVE: House explodes as massive Bunyip blaze threatens to burn more homes

The Bunyip bushfire has been heading towards the township of Longwarry, 80 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, for some time.

Nine News reporter Sam Cucchiara has just been evacuated from the area.

“We were just driving through and the smoke was quite intense. It was starting to really cover our car and we couldn’t see to far ahead,” he said.

“They were quite panicked just telling us ‘Just keep driving, keep driving, the fire is about to hit any second'.”

“That was quite concerning because there were a lot of homes around us.”

We are hearing reports that Jinks Creek Winery on the Gembrook-Tonimbuk Road has been lost. Will let you know more when we get more details. 

This map from Emergency Management Victoria gives you some idea of what they are facing today. 

Channel Nine's Sam Cucchiara reports he's just been evacuated from Longwarry, near Bunyip, as the "fire is about to hit". Very dangerous, smoky conditions on the roads - please use extreme caution.

Longwarry is a signifigant town, with about 2000 residents in the latest census.

'Karen' from Tonimbuk just called the ABC - she believes she may have lost her house, which stands on Gembrook-Tonimbuk Road.

“We still don’t know if we have a house. Jinks Creek Winery has been burnt to the ground – that’s about 5km from our house. We evacuated to some friends in Bunyip, where we’re staying at the moment – but there’s a watch and act out for Bunyip at the moment, so we might have to evacuate from there again.”

She says she was told be a firefighter – who was pulled out of the area last night because it was too dangerous to fight the fire – that her house had probably been lost.

Here's the latest emergency warning for the Budgeree Fire, issued at 1.24pm

Anthony Colangelo is at a community meeting at Pakenham, and just filed this:

A community meeting in Pakenham has heard the Bunyip fire has grown beyond 6500-hectares. The wind change will hit the Bunyip fire at 5pm today, meaning winds will shift from north-westerly to south-easterly.

Ahead of that change here will be dangerous gusts of 60-70kph. It is still too early to know just how much property and infrastructure has been damaged because it is too dangerous for firefighters to get into impacted areas. At least one mobile phone tower in the Bunyip State Park has been destroyed.

There are two major fires threatening homes and lives today. Both are in Gippsland. At least five structures, some of them houses, have been destroyed.

The Bunyip State Park Fire

This fire has grown rapidly, and firefighters have been unable to stop its spread. It has reached the Princes Freeway (which is closed). There are emergency warnings out for a number of towns in the area, including: Bunyip, Cornucopia and Garfield. Emergency services advise people in the area to shelter inside, as it is too late to leave.