Tuesday's weather conditions have "neither helped nor hindered" the firefighting efforts co-ordinated from Tallangatta by Forest Fire Management Victoria.
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An Incident Control Centre is operating from the Tallangatta township.
Incident Controller Andy Miller said two new fires were started by lightning in Nariel Valley between 1.30pm and 3pm, bringing the number of fires on his books to 17.
"We've got about 159 people working on the fires; about 123 out on the fire-line and the rest in the incident management team, and in staging areas and aircraft operations," he said.
"It's very remote, steep, rocky country, and very hard to get to.
"The fire areas are varying in size ... the biggest is about 500 hectares and about 2000 hectares has been burnt in total.
"We expect that will increase substantially with the burning out operations we need to undertake to control the fires."
Mr Miller said low cloud had hindered aerial operations on Tuesday morning.
"It's a lot cooler, but it's still windy and the wind is not in the best direction for our back-burning," he said.
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"There's certainly not enough rain to put anything out and it's unlikely we'll get that before Christmas.
"We're not forecast to get really hot dry weather in the next fortnight, but the winds are still going to be challenging.
"If we had really good conditions, we could have this wrapped up in three or four weeks.
"But there's a range of factors that will affect that [including] the weather and availability of fire crews and equipment."
An ICC in Ovens is also managing fires in the Alpine Shire, and about 250 attended a community meeting on Monday night.
"We've had some really good feedback from that," Mr Miller said.
"Once we do commence our burning out operations and back-burning, there will be quite a lot of smoke in the area, so people will need to be aware of that."
Mr Miller said people should monitor the conditions of fires and be mindful of their activities.
"The best thing they can do is keep out of the areas where we've closed the forest and parks," he said.
"Make certain they do all the right things - if they're going camping, to put their fires out when they finish."
For the latest incident information visit emergency.vic.gov.au, and for road closures, go to www.traffic.vicroads.vic.gov.au.
