Firefighters are battling a large scrub fire near Dunedin.

A team of firefighters is keeping watch over an Auckland school which was badly damaged in a fire last night.

At least 60 firefighers were brought in to tackle the blaze in the technology block of Northcote College its height last night. The fire was spotted by a security guard shortly before 8pm.

An LPG tanker that caught fire early today is blocking a Waikato road, police say.

The teenager who perished in Saturday morning's ferocious house blaze in Christchurch was found dead in his bed, police say.

Tributes flowed last night for the 16-year-old boy killed in a house fire trying to get his pregnant friend to safety.

Neighbours heard teenagers screaming in the street as blaze ripped through Christchurch home.

Thirteen years have passed since the day New York firefighter John Mills' life changed forever.

Two abandoned Christchurch houses have been seriously damaged in suspicious fires early today.

A man was killed yesterday after a controlled burn-off on a 13,000 ha station in Otago, which was so big it was visible from the town of Cromwell.

A specialist police squad negotiated with a man in a rural Far North home for about four hours before he was found dead in a house fire caused by an explosive device.

Police were negotiating with a man later found dead in a house fire in Northland early this morning after a firearms incident.

An explosion injured as many as six people last night when a large steel grass roller blew up after it was put on a Mosgiel bonfire.

One person was injured in a house fire in Rotorua this morning.

Today is a special day for a little boy who has miraculously emerged from the aftermath of a car fire that nearly took his life.

When the Kaingaroa Forest Volunteer Fire Brigade membership dwindled to just four, the station was faced with closure.