Police are investigating reports of looting during the weekend's devastating fires in Victoria's south-west, which left 18 homes damaged or destroyed.
Detectives said the Latte on High cafe was broken into at Terang — one of the worst-affected areas — on Saturday night or Sunday morning.
Owner Bev Carroll said the thief smashed the cafe's back door and a wall, and stole hundreds of dollars, including from cancer charity donation jars.
"They're disgusting," she said.
"They're pretty low to come in like that when other people are getting their properties burned out.
"Terang was just lit up by flames — it was so bright because of the fire.
"They've taken advantage because the whole town was blacked out [without power] from 9:00pm until 4:30am in the morning."
Police urged anyone with information about the incident to contact Crime Stoppers.
Firefighters return to tackle hot spots
Firefighters will spend another day mopping up after the blazes, which also burnt out dozens of sheds and killed hundreds of livestock.
Crews were able to contain the fire burning near Terang and Cobden on Tuesday morning.
Other fires at Garvoc, Camperdown and Gazette were contained overnight.
About 100 firefighters were on the ground on Tuesday morning looking for hotspots and tackling flare-ups, and some homes in the region remained without power.
Gavin Freeman from the State Control Centre said crews made much progress since conditions improved.
"We are very comfortable we have stopped the forward progress of these fires now," he said on Monday night.
"There's still a lot of hotspots in the middle though, so there's still a lot of work for crews to make sure none of those hotspots get out."
