Residents in southern Canberra suburbs were urged to be prepared as conditions deteriorate on Friday and Saturday.
The ACT Emergency Services Agency held a community meeting at the Lanyon Vikings Club on Wednesday night.
It was standing room only at the event with hundreds of people gathered to hear about the threat of the Orroral Valley fire.
The ACT Rural Fire Service said given the current conditions it could not predict if the fire would hit southern suburbs such as Banks, Conder and Gordon.
"I can't tell whether it will come upon the suburbs " ACT RFS chief officer Joe Murphy said.
"What we are committing to is we will give you the earliest possible warnings we can and we will keep you up to date."
Mr Murphy said he could only warn to expect fire conditions to deteriorate over the weekend.
"What we saw yesterday with that unprecedented fire weather may well occur Friday and may well occur on Saturday," he said.
"If you haven't done a bushfire survival plan, it is time to do that.
"For people living in the southern part of Tuggeranong stay safe."
ACT Police Acting Superintendent South District Rod Anderson addressed the crowd about evacuation planning and why police would not release the specified plans.
"There is no point spreading details about that evacuation until we need to evacuate," he said.
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This spurred one member of the crowd to ask the Mr Anderson to be more specific about traffic management.
"When you say we don't need to know about the evacuation plan, I get that, but there are two roads out so everybody is wondering what are your plans for managing traffic on two roads out?," she asked.
Mr Anderson said he could not be more specific as the plan would be determined by the direction in which the fire was travelling.
Another member of the crowd also asked about what the plans would be if an evacuation order was imposed in the middle of the night.
Mr Murphy said alerts would be sent via mobiles and landlines. He said people in southern Canberra suburbs should sleep with their phones on. Police would also door knock.
