Dozens of homes are likely to have been destroyed and six firefighters injured as South Australia’s worst bushfire since the 1983 Ash Wednesday blaze continues to threaten lives.

The out-of-control Sampson Flat fire in the Mount Lofty Ranges is threatening 19 communities after travelling erratically and burning freely in all directions for most of Saturday.

Thousands of residents have fled their homes to relief centres and staging posts in the Adelaide Hills since the emergency warning was first raised on Friday afternoon.

• Lives, property under threat in Adelaide
• Warnings as Victoria prepares to swelter

Residents – many with personal items and pets in hand – have been advised not to return home for several days because the fire within 30km of central Adelaide is not expected to be contained until early next week.

Ian Tanner from the Country Fire Service told one group of locals: “there is not a fire service anywhere in the world that could put this fire out at the moment.”

With temperatures above 40C and winds over 90km/h, the CFS said the area “is being confronted by a fire that hasn’t been since 1983” when the Ash Wednesday fires claimed 28 lives in South Australia.

CFS chief officer Greg Nettleton said the Sampson Flat fire had burned through about 10,000 hectares of scrub affecting townships including Kersbrook and Mount Crawford to the east and Birdwood to the south.

Lives are at risk in communities in a large swathe of land south of Sampson Flat, stretching from Upper Hermitage, Inglewood and Houghton to Lobethal and Charleston.

At least five homes and several sheds have been confirmed lost but the CFS has said there may be dozens of homes destroyed.

“I think there are more losses than that from what I’ve been able to get from my people, but they’re not at the stage where we can put an exact number on it,” Mr Nettleton said.

Mr Nettleton confirmed six CFS volunteers had been injured while fighting the blaze, most of them suffering smoke inhalation.

Thousands of firefighters are battling the blaze in hot and very windy weather.

“They’re doing their absolute best in what are the worst of conditions imaginable for firefighting,” CFS spokesman Rob Sandford said.

Premier Jay Weatherill said the fire was likely to move northeast but all of its edges remained active and there were unpredictable wind gusts.

“There should be no sense of relief because the temperatures are somewhat lower and there are spots of rain about,” Mr Weatherill said.

“The situation remains extremely dangerous.”

The threat of bushfires is a fact of life for residents of the Adelaide Hills but Kersbrook resident Graeme Zucker says he’s never seen such extreme conditions in the six years he’s lived in the area.

Mr Zucker fled his Kersbrook home on Saturday, taking photos, a laptop and a bag of fruit after his wife Liz had already left with the three family dogs.

They now face a long and anxious wait to learn whether their house has survived.

“You might be lucky, you might not be,” Mr Zucker told AAP.

“We won’t know until the roads are opened and we can drive back and come around the corner.”

Kennels destroyed

About 40 dogs and cats have perished after a bushfire destroyed large parts of a boarding kennel and cattery in the Adelaide foothills.

Fire ripped through the Tea Tree Gully Boarding Kennels and Cattery on Saturday morning, burning down the cattery and a large section of the kennels.

All of the cats and about a third of the dogs at the kennels were killed.

Owner Paul Hicks says he and his wife were unable to take any of the animals with them when the fire forced them to evacuate.

The devastated couple’s home was also destroyed in the blaze.

“It’s really, really sad at the moment,” Mr Hicks told ABC radio.

“We’re trying to come to terms with what’s happened with us and think about what we do going forward.

“It’s my wife’s passion. She loved the animals and she loved the customers.”

The couple were able to rescue about 40 dogs, with one large kennel block withstanding the blaze.

Victoria – weather brings relief for some, headaches for others

A weather change has brought welcome rain but also new problems for firefighters battling blazes in Victoria.

More than a dozen fires burnt across the state on Saturday with separate major warnings issued for areas around Moyston, Dimboola, Edenhope and Cherrypool in the west, while a threatening blaze ignited southeast of Melbourne in Hastings late in the day.

The storm band, which crossed the state from west to east, damped down the major Moyston fire on Saturday afternoon after it had burned mostly out of control since midday Friday.

The fire, which has razed almost 5000 hectares in Victoria’s west, was burning within containment lines early Saturday evening and authorities have downgraded a warning to say the immediate threat to homes has subsided.

“The good news is the front has brought some moisture with it, particularly over the western parts of the state where we had that serious fire at Moyston,” State Control Centre spokesperson Gerard Scholten told AAP.

“The rain has brought some relief. However, the bad news is the wind change has caused some serious problems down at Hastings and Crib Point.”

The Hastings fire, a grass fire which started just after 2pm Saturday, was burning in a southerly direction down the coastline before the front reached the Melbourne area.

The fire turned easterly after the wind change, burning in the direction of suburban homes.

The popular holiday spot was evacuated, triggering traffic chaos, though the fire was contained before it could cause major damage.

Evacuated resident Barbara Tipper said she had noticed the fire moving towards her home in Bittern from Hastings when she rushed home to pack her personal belongings.

“It was getting pretty scary,” she told ABC TV.

“There’s lots of smoke and we have no hope if a fire gets in here.”

Lightning strikes from the storm front also triggered a batch of new fires in the state’s west late on Saturday, and there are “watch and act” recommendations for towns including Dimboola and Edenhope.

One home, four sheds and an unknown amount of livestock were lost in the Moyston fire, which also posed a threat to the nearby township of Maroona before it was contained.

“I was here for two weeks when the Grampians went up last time, and I stuck it out today too,” Margaret Wilson, the publican at Maroona’s sole pub, told AAP on Saturday.

“I was a bit nervous. I had the cat and the dog in so that, if I could get out, I could just grab them.

“I was planning to totally stick it out, but you don’t know.”

A few local CFA volunteers, including Anthony Brady and Mick Watson of Yalla-Y-Poora, were having a quenching ale at the bar late on Saturday.

“For the size of the fire, we’ve lost a bit,” Mr Brady said.

“With a good night and better weather tomorrow, hopefully we’ll be able to wind it right back,” he said.

NSW lends a hand

The NSW government says more than 300 volunteer firefighters will be sent to Victoria and South Australia as both states confront bushfire emergencies.

In a statement, NSW Acting Premier Troy Grant said the Rural Fire Service teams would “do all they can to provide resources and support” to the two states, with “fires currently threatening homes”.

Mr Grant said the government would deploy up to 35 incident management specialists and 300 RFS volunteer firefighters, supported by paramedics, over the weekend to help in the bushfire crises.

“Our NSW emergency service personnel have a hard task ahead of them and I urge all specialist officers and frontline firefighters to take care in the extreme conditions,” he said.

NSW RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the agency was also sending seven aircraft to assist in Victoria, including helicopters and fixed-wing bombers.