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Residents were facing a nervous night on Saturday as fires continued to rage across Victoria following a day of record-breaking heat.

As the temperature soared above 40 degrees across the state, more than 300 fires broke out on Saturday.

Several homes were lost in a grassfire near Scotsburn, south of Ballarat, that burnt through more than 3000 hectares.

While a burst of rain slowed its progress in the afternoon, that Scotsburn blaze was one of a number that were still burning at 10pm as firefighters braced for a night of strong, changeable winds and continued heat.

At least one fire was allegedly deliberately lit, with a 34-year-old homeless man charged with reckless conduct endangering life, reckless conduct endangering serious injury and committing an indictable offence while on bail in relation to a fire at Epping on Melbourne’s northern outskirts.

He was remanded to face Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday.

More than 50 fire crews and four air tankers — including two from New South Wales — were battling the Scotsburn blaze on Saturday night, while watch-and-act alerts were still in force for fires near Wandin and Marysville.

There was little reprieve expected overnight, with the temperature not expected to dip below 30 degrees before midnight and a forecast wind change.

Earlier in the day, firefighters from three Country Fire Authority trucks survived two separate “burnovers” near Scotsburn. The officers were forced to retreat to their trucks as they became trapped by a fast-moving section of fire.

The firefighters turned on their trucks’ sprinkler systems and pulled down their protective heat shutters.

“They enacted their safety procedures that they’re trained for. They had a successful outcome and they went straight back out on the fire ground,” a CFA spokeswoman said.

Hundreds of firefighters were on the ground during the day, while more more than 50 aircraft – including Firebirds and Helitacks – attacked the blazes from above.

By 3.30pm on Saturday, emergency services had received more than 400 calls.

Among the blazes early in the day were two large fires in the outer reaches of Melbourne – in Wandin North and Epping.

Wandin North resident Geoff Riddle was at home when his view of the Yarra Ranges was suddenly obscured by billowing smoke.

Mr Riddle believed the fire started less than a kilometre or two from his house and four-hectare horse property in Cormilio Drive.

He enacted his fire plan, alerted his wife and rushed to move horses off the property.

As he moved one of the horses from a bottom paddock, it became clear that his property was under serious threat.

“I think the main thing is you really don’t understand what goes on until you experience it,” he said after the extreme danger had passed, and as a team of firefighters doused burning and blackened trees just over his boundary fence.

“It’s pretty daunting when you’ve got that wall of flames coming at your house. And you’ve got all your animals and your property. And everything’s there, and everything is in jeopardy, so it’s a bit of a worry.”

Authorities announced an emergency warning for Wandin North – a town of about 3000 people – just a few kilometres away from the blaze.

Shortly after, residents on the Warburton Highway in Wandin North could be seen hosing down rooftops.

Resident Matt Horton said embers more than 10 centimetres long landed on his property.

Mr Horton, a plumber, attached a rooftop sprinkler system to his house shortly after Black Saturday in 2009. The sprinklers were used on Saturday for the first time to protect against a bushfire, delivering a constant spray of water over the roof.

“Mate, it’s the first time I’ve turned them on for a fire. To be honest, hopefully it’s the last,” he said. Mr Horton said many residents left town when the fire started. “It was like a ghost town, everyone cleared out,” he said.

The emergency warnings were downgraded and the fire was contained on Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, 20 people were taken to hospital with heat-related conditions.

Paramedics were called to 50 heat-related cases throughout the day, as the temperature hit 41.2degrees in Melbourne at 3.20pm. The state’s highest temperatures were not far from Melbourne, with 45.1 degrees recorded at Avalon shortly after 3pm.

Despite the heat, four children had to be rescued from locked cars, frustrating authorities who had spent the week warning parents of the dangers.

White as a lighthouse and as well-maintained, with a striking red trim, Bailey’s Garage displays the name of Holden, even though the carmaker pulled out of the village decades ago.

Three years before Australia’s first Holden rolled off the assembly line in 1948, the Southwell family were selling Pontiacs, Buicks and Chevrolets for General Motors from their garage, which faced the Hume Highway.

“We clocked up 50 years in Australia before Holden did,” Craig Southwell, the third-generation owner, says. General Motors presented the family with a badge recognising the 50 years, only to close the dealership years later because they were not selling enough Holdens.

“We sold 156 cars in one year,” Southwell says. At the time Bailey’s Garage employed 13 mechanics and two spare parts people as well as family members.

“Dad used to go down every week to Sydney to pick up a new car. We would have to go down and drive them back in those days. They took the dealership off us in 1995 after we went 50 years. It was a shame, it was the little guys who did a lot of the stuff for Holden.”

Amplifying his sadness has been the loss of other car dealerships in bush towns. “Cootamundra, Yass, Crookwell, all these places had Holden dealers, the only dealer left in Yass is Toyota. There’s no [Holden] dealership in Crookwell,” Southwell says.

“It’s sad, we really liked the fact we sold Holdens. We weren’t making money out of it really, it was a nice thing to think, this is what we do.”

In the 1940s, when Frank Bailey who built the garage died, Southwell’s grandfather Vern, who owned a garage down the road at Dalton, brought the place and agreed to Mrs Bailey’s request not to change the name.

“You don’t need something with your own name on it, and it is easier for something to become an institution if it hasn’t got your name on it,” says Southwell. “We still get people ringing up asking for Mr Bailey.”

Years later Southwell decided he didn’t like the blocky letters added to the facade in the 1970s. “I put the paintwork back to the original. I went with what they had on the original letterhead.” He asked a local signwriter to reproduce images of old Holdens which adorn an exterior wall. People take photographs of it, and filmmakers ask him if they can use the front as a backdrop.

Bailey’s Garage once opened seven days a week. Even when it had closed for the day, people still managed to get hold of them to ask for petrol or mechanical help. More reliable these days, cars still run out of petrol after hours. And their drivers still have a remarkable knack of finding Craig Southwell.

“They seem to track you down, they ring you up at 4 o’clock in the morning saying why aren’t you open? Um, it’s 4am,” he says with a sigh.

His father Doug ran the NRMA depot for many years. “My dad would have to go out to all the accidents, there was no [police] rescue, the tow-truck guys got people out with the ambos and police all at the same time,” he said.

Southwell does not miss the highway which bypassed Gunning in 1995, nor the procession of heavy trucks.

“They would come through in the middle of the night, you would just see them thundering through town,” he says. “They would come through at 200 miles an hour. People couldn’t pull up because there was too much traffic. I reckon there are more people now because there is no traffic.”

Southwell did his mechanical apprenticeship at Bailey’s, and employs two other mechanics. Today electrical issues cause most breakdowns, due to all the computer-run devices in cars. Servicing cars for Gunning people sustains the garage.

“We also get quite a few people from Goulburn, some from Yass, a few from Canberra come out,” says Southwell. So why would someone drive from Canberra to Gunning for a car service?

“We don’t lie to them. I suppose we are cheaper,” he says. “The automotive game doesn’t have a real good reputation with what they do to people. We try to tell people exactly what is going on.”

After looking over a bill for a mechanical service in Canberra for a nurse visiting the village, Southwell said to her:

“One thing you want to ask them is why they are charging you for 5.5 litres of oil. Your car only holds 4.2 litres and they are charging $40 a litre for oil.”

Bits and pieces discarded over the years sit in corners of the big workshop, bringing in collectors who occasionally rifle through it all. Someone helped themselves years ago to the tops of the old bowsers on the footpaths.

He and his wife Sam run the school buses and employ four or five casual drivers. Fuel, oil and mechanical repairs are the core of the business and unlike most petrol outlets, Bailey’s does not sell soft drinks, milk, bread or lollies.

“It’s stuff we don’t need, because we are a garage and not a service station,” Southwell says with pride. “A service station doesn’t have a garage, in my opinion.”

NSW Police Transport Command and officers from Albury and Wagga Wagga Local Area Commands are conducting a three-day cross-border crackdown with Victoria Police on public transport.

Operation Southern Aurora started today (Thursday 17 December 2015) and will run until Saturday 19 December 2015.

As part of the operation, police will patrol interstate XPT trains from Sydney to Melbourne and Canberra Xplorer services between Campbelltown and Queanbeyan, and V/Line services to Melbourne.

NSW Police Transport Command’s Superintendent Dave Roptell said police are targeting crime and anti-social behaviour on public transport, not just in the metropolitan areas but also on rural networks.

“Police will not tolerate crime, property damage, anti-social behaviour or drug and alcohol use on our public transport networks and will be issuing penalty notices to anyone caught doing the wrong thing.”

“The support from Local Area Commands within Southern Region to assist with this operation ensures travellers on the rural transport network experience a safe and clean environment,” Supt Roptell said.

A drug dog operation will be conducted at Wagga Wagga Railway Station today (Thursday 17 December 2015).

Officers will be at Albury Railway Station conducting the same operation, with assistance from Victoria Police Transit Safety Bureau tomorrow (Friday 18 December 2015).

“NSW Police will be joined by our Victorian counterparts in Albury to patrol trains together,” Supt Roptell said.

“This dual-state operation will ensure an effective and coordinated use of resources.”