Residents who were evacuated from their homes as a bushfire burned out of control at Hastings, on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula, have started to inspect the damage.

Crews are still patrolling the fire that broke out at the popular holiday spot on Saturday but authorities said it was now contained.

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Hastings resident Tiarne Dooley told the ABC she thought she had lost her home.

“I was home on my own, I heard all the sirens and I left pretty much straight away because I had a really bad feeling,” she said.

“About two hours later we got told to get our stuff and get out.”

Ms Dooley said she felt panicked and scared as the blaze bared down on properties.

“It was terrifying,” she said.

“The not knowing what was happening, do you still have a house to go back to? Are you going to be allowed to go back to your house?”

“We watched on from my mum’s place around the corner with this massive amount of smoke.

“It looked like our house was gone for sure, and when we came back it wasn’t.

“It was pretty scary to watch, I reckon the smoke covered Hastings completely.”

CFA firefighter Alan Millar was among those battling the blaze, and said things got out of hand when a fire behind a factory rapidly took off due to hot conditions and strong winds.

He said the fire came “extremely close” to damaging properties and crews did excellent work to contain the fire.

“The helicopters were a tremendous asset and [we] managed to pull it up prior to the residential properties,” Mr Millar said.

“We were lucky not to lose properties to be quite honest, we did have a couple of sheds damaged and a bit of fencing.

“As far as as the fire-fighting operation is concerned it was pretty good.

“The weather conditions were really against us, the wind was quite strong and gusty, swirling around a fair bit.

“The wind change that came through did cause some problems.”

Fire ‘serves as a warning’ for those on urban fringe

Mr Millar said the fire was a warning to those living on the urban fringes and in built up areas close to bushland.

“This would come as a shock to a lot of residents around here and it serves as a reminder to anyone that if you live on an urban-rural interface,” he said.

“Certainly people in the bush would be well aware of the threat of fire and the damage it can do, but it should serve as a reminder to everyone.”

Ms Dooley said she was grateful for the efforts of the fire crews.

“There is not enough words to be able to compare to how thankful we are,” she said.

“All it takes is [the fire on the] fence line to get a little bit more out of control and everything goes up.

“There’s about 50 or 60 units around here and that’s a lot of homes and a lot families that lose everything.

“The firefighters were very apologetic for breaking my fence trying to get in … but we’re very lucky.

“We pretty much have some smashed windows and shrivelled up blinds, but that’s about it. Happy to be breathing.”