Fire near homeless tent camp behind Wangaratta's Supercheap Auto

Fire crews contained the blaze within 30 minutes.

Country Fire Authority senior station officer Scott Shenfield said the campsite area had been frequented by a number of people experiencing homelessness, but none of them had been at home during the incident.

"It's pretty much destroyed a couple of tents and all the goods that were inside the tents," he said.

"There is one tent that is still serviceable that I think they can sleep in, but they don't have anything else, that is all that they have.

"[It was] very well set up, so they had tarps, they had some gas cooking appliances, it was set up as a permanent or a semi permanent arrangement."

Mr Shenfield said there was no fire risk to any nearby buildings, but the fence and hedge of an adjoining property suffered some minor damage.

Police said the incident was an accident.

Later at about 2.30pm that afternoon, Mr Shenfield said fire crews responded to a separate incident at the rear of Wangaratta's Harper Street along the creek.

"An unknown person threw some petrol against a tree and set it alight and ran off," he said.

"It was a largish red gum, but there was mostly a little bit of fire on the bark and about a meter square on the ground in front of it, there's too much moisture for it to go anywhere."

Police are investigating.

EARLIER:

Emergency services have responded to a number of explosions from behind a retail complex on Wangaratta's main road, which is believed to be the camp of a number of people experiencing homelessness.

At about noon Tuesday, four fire trucks rushed to the Supercheap Auto on Tone Road in Wangaratta, where firefighters extinguished the campsite.

A nearby witness said there were at least four tents set up behind the shop and the people living there would plug their appliances into the back of Supercheap's switchboard.

Wangaratta resident Shane Hack said he was in the shop at the time of the first explosion.

"We heard a dull bang and next minute the staff in the shop came through and said 'everyone needs to get out, we think there was an exploding gas bottle'," he said.

"We came outside and saw a huge plume of smoke coming out.

"I was concerned, I wanted to get my son away from it in case it exploded, and it was enough of a concern that they evacuated all of the shops."

MORE TO COME.