Aussie residents flee as bushfire spreads

Residents of a tiny town in Victoria's Mallee region, in the state's far north-west, have fled ahead of a large bushfire which has burned property.

Sparked by a lightning strike earlier today, the fire is in the Murray Sunset National Park near Hattah, about 485km north-west of Melbourne.

The fire has burned private property near the national park and blackened about 10,000 hectares of land.

Hattah lies on the Calder Highway between Mildura and Ouyen.

It is wedged between the Murray Sunset and Hattah Kulkyne national parks, which are covered with dense mallee scrub dried out by unseasonably high temperatures and prolonged low rainfall.

The fire has cut the highway, the main road link between Mildura and Melbourne.

Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) state duty officer Andrew Graystone said the initial lightning strike was fanned by gusty westerly winds of 70km/h or more during the day, with temperatures in the low 30s.

"The fire is still running very hard in the dark," he told AAP.

"This is dry desert country. It is still very windy and it is still quite warm.

"We are hoping conditions will moderate during the night, and it looks as though that westerly wind will do that and allow us to get in and get containment lines around it."

Hattah residents had "self-evacuated" in the face of the fire, Mr Graystone said.

More than 100 DSE and Country Fire Authority firefighters are on the scene.

A second fire has scorched about 850 hectares of bush near Walpeup, about 50km south-west of the Hattah fire.

- AAP