UPDATE: FIRE crews and resort staff have used snow machines to fight three spot blazes at Victoria's Mount Hotham.
At 8.22pm tonight the CFA issued an emergency update to alert people to a fast moving fire in the Mt Hotham, Hotham Heights and Dinner Plain areas.
The fire is about 5000ha in size, out-of-control and creating spot fires about half a kilometre ahead as the fire moves in a south easterly direction.
"Relocation is not advisable," the statement reads.
Dinner Plain resident Shelley Holah said almost the entire ski village evacuated about 5pm this afternoon after the fire approached the town at a frightening pace.
"This afternoon the fire came out of nowhere and we where quite vulnerable…as was Hotham,” Ms Holah said.
"The serious advice (from the CFA) was to evacuate so we did … 95 percent of the (residents) have left and the rest are assisting with fires."
Ms Holah runs an accommodation booking service in the tourist village which is about 10km from Hotham Heights.
"It’s a pretty dangerous situation…you feel pretty helpless when you have to leave it, it’s been my life up there for a long time,” she said.
Ms Holah said it was different to the 2003 fires as they had very little notice and no strike teams in Dinner Plain when the fire flared up.
According to a spokeswoman from the state control centre about 100 firefighters were at the blaze and another 100 from four strike teams were heading to the fire tonight.
There were reports of CFA crews from Paynesville and Bairnsdale heading to the high country to assist with efforts.
Omeo’s Golden Age Hotel publican Terry Watt said he had quite a few evacuated people staying at his hotel and they had reported the fire spotting over the King Spur in the Dargo River area.
Earlier today Mt Hotham ski resort, management board chief executive Jim Atteridge said he didn't think there was an immediate risk to life.
Embers from the Harrietville fire sparked one spot fire in the village below the Hotham police station and two fires on the ski fields, he said.
Mr Atteridge said the ski resort's equipment was being used to drench buildings in the village and about nine response crew monitoring the situation for the incident response centre.
"The one in the village is below the police station and is in a position where we can defend it as it comes into the village," Mr Atteridge told AAP of the spot fires.
Mr Atteridge estimated there were 40 or 50 people in the village, including a full complement of resort administration staff.
He said many tradies working in the area had already fled.
"A significant increase in activity out on the Harrietville fire caused ember attack in the Hotham village area and obviously intense smoke," he said.
"Those who are in the village and don't have accommodation we will accommodate."
As Hotham response teams fought the fires, Melbourne was being lashed by its first significant rainstorm in weeks.
For more information visit http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/
