Updated January 01, 2018 15:01:06

Three Victorians have been injured by illegal fireworks while celebrating New Year's Eve, including a man who was burnt after fireworks exploded in his face, police say.

A 34-year-old man seriously injured his hand in Caroline Springs, in Melbourne's west, when the firework he was holding exploded about 10:30pm.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp said the man had undergone surgery.

Another man, a 42-year-old from Brunswick West, also injured his hand while lighting an illegal firework.

A third man, in his 30s, suffered burns after a firework exploded in his face at Melton shortly before 12:30am.

He was flown to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Deputy Commissioner Crisp said he was frustrated and disappointed because police had warned about the dangers of illegal fireworks following a death in Victoria last year.

"They're not to be played around with, they're dangerous, they are explosives and we're very, very fortunate we've not seen another death overnight," he said.

"Three serious injuries are bad enough and I feel for those people and their friends and family, however it was just stupid, plain stupid, and shouldn't happen."

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade also suspects fireworks were the cause of a grassfire in Gowanbrae, in Melbourne's north-west, just after 9:00pm on New Year's Eve.

In Melbourne's south-east, a woman in her late teens was injured after she fell off the roof at Ashburton Primary School, where she and others were trying to get a better view of the city's fireworks.

Emergency services said she fell three metres onto a basketball court and was taken to the Alfred Hospital with back injuries, where she was in a stable condition.

Photo: A man in Melton, who was flown to hospital, was one of several people injured by fireworks. (ABC News)

Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp said police were mostly pleased with crowd behaviour across the state, despite the injuries and an increase in arrests compared to last year.

"At about 2 o'clock this morning I was standing at the intersection of Flinders Street and Swanston Street and I was talking to members of our public order response teams … and one of them actually said to me there was a lot of love in the air," he said.

"For me that pretty much sums up what we saw in the city last night and across the state as a whole."

Police arrested 238 people in total, including:

• 99 people for drunkenness
• 22 for drug-related offences
• 23 for assault
• Seven for behavioural offences
• Three for theft

Deputy Commissioner Crisp said searches of more than 540 people in the city discovered seven people carrying weapons, including knives, knuckle dusters and box cutters.

Similar searches of 710 people in St Kilda and Prahran did not turn up any weapons, he said.

He said one of the assaults involved a fight between two men, which left one in hospital with injuries that were initially feared to be life-threatening.

"He is now speaking and is speaking to our investigators, however we are looking for someone in relation to that particular incident," he said.

A year ago, police made 183 New Year's Eve arrests, including 110 for drunkenness.

Topics: crime, law-crime-and-justice, accidents, disasters-and-accidents, community-and-society, arts-and-entertainment, events, carnivals-and-festivals, melton-3337, brunswick-west-3055, caroline-springs-3023, melbourne-3000, ashburton-3147, vic

First posted January 01, 2018 09:29:01