Lancefield residents whose homes are under threat from a raging bushfire are fuming that the state government went ahead with a burn-off despite forecasts of high fire-danger weather.

The community anger comes amid claims the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning ignores weather warnings in favour of the burn-off schedule and does not properly monitor burn-offs.

The Lancefield fire has destroyed at least one house and continues to threaten a dozen more after the planned burn-off jumped containment lines on Saturday, sparking a major bushfire.

Water Minister Lisa Neville has promised an external review into the burn-off, but that is little comfort for Lancefield residents, who have spent the past 72 hours frantically hosing down roofs, filling bathtubs and racing to move cattle and other animals as the fire front bears down on their homes.

The burn-off was conducted by DELWP workers in the Cobaw State Forest on Wednesday.

A former department worker said DELWP was a "stodgy, non-adaptable government department run on schedules and timetables".

"Their planned burns are planned and scheduled at the beginning of the winter season and they seem to be unable to change the schedule even if weather conditions change," the source said.

"Everything is run by the department heads just as it was in the 1980s. Staff are inflexible and refuse to adapt."

The source said burn-offs were also not properly monitored.

"Often fires are left smouldering for weeks at a time with limited supervision, only daily checks," the source said.

By the end of the AFL grand final on Saturday afternoon, the Cobaw fire had jumped containment lines into the property of Rachel Carbonell's parents.

"It got out of control right behind our house," Ms Carbonell said.

It brought back fears of a repeat of 2003, when a scheduled burn in the same area raged out of control.

"It feels like very weird bad luck," Ms Carbonell said.

Former Labor MP Mary Delahunty, who has a small property at Cobaw, was angry to learn that a planned burn-off sparked the blaze.

"I'm furious that this so-called controlled burn endangered us again, twice in three days," Ms Delahunty said.

"Someone in the department must be accountable for the fear, the anxiety, the loss of property."

In 2003 Ms Delahunty was the minister for the Department of Sustainability (now DELWP) when the last Cobaw burn-off broke containment lines.

"I can remember being on the top of our little house with the sprinklers going in the raging wind and the radio on blaring below me ... and we were ringed by fire," she said.

"This time, someone must be accountable. Who did not show the attention that burn required over the weekend? Why was it lit last Wednesday or Thursday? Who walked away from it on the weekend?"

Outspoken environmentalist Jill Redwood said the burn-off was "unforgivable".

"This is not an environment department, but a bureaucracy of arsonists!" she wrote on Facebook.

Veterinarian Miesja Reynolds, who runs the Lancefield Equine Clinic, said she was "extremely angry".

"It's a disaster really," she said.

"It should not have happened like this. It should have been done when it was a lot cooler.

"We haven't lost our house, but we've lost five kilometres worth of fencing."

Ms Reynolds, like many other landowners, was forced to drain water from her property's dam to help fight the fire.

"We don't have enough water for stock now," she said.

Ms Reynold's mother Sophia was in disbelief.

"Last weekend, the weather forecast was 30 and 35 degrees. We all knew. We watch the weather forecast every day. Why didn't they take that into consideration? Why start something like that?" she said.

"We could have been spared all this. It's really unbelievable, what you have to do to save your property."