Christchurch fire crews were kept busy last night with two serious blazes across the city.

A woman who wanted to flee Christchurch after becoming embroiled with a gang and set fire in her own flat has been jailed for more than four years.

Fire safety officers will investigate a suspicious blaze at an unused timber mill at Kaitaia.

A police guard has been set up outside a derelict Greymouth house that was the target of a suspected arson attack early today.

Fire fighters attending a blaze north of Taupo tonight were greeted with a large explosion from inside a burning factory.

The sole occupant of a newly-renovated Dunedin home extensively damaged in a fire fled the inferno after she was woken by a smoke alarm.

A truck laden with newspapers ignited in a dramatic fire in Canterbury early this morning.

An Otago teenager is lucky to have escaped serious injury after a fireball erupted when she was cooking in a Pine Hill house on Tuesday.

Suspicion surrounds a blaze that engulfed a red-zoned property in Kaiapoi, north of Christchurch, overnight.

Police are investigating a suspicious fire at a Nelson pub over the weekend - the second blaze to hit the establishment in less than a year.

Fire investigators are trying to establish the cause of a large blaze at an Auckland factory last night.

Colleagues of a Wellington firefighter badly burned after becoming separated from his mates during an industrial blaze are "pretty cut up" over what happened.

A huge bushfire raging on the western boundary of Yosemite National Park has led California's Governor, Jerry Brown, to declare a state of emergency.

An investigation and a separate review will be carried out into today's blaze in Petone that left a firefighter in hospital with burns.

Three members of the Austrian ski team here for the Winter Games have been left without passports or spare clothes after a fire engulfed their luxury lodge.

A motorcycle cop's bike burst into flames when he stopped to question a Christchurch motorist this morning.

Firefighters saved two Masterton homes from flames with only moments to spare after a blaze engulfed a residential garage yesterday.

One person has died in a house fire in Pongaroa, south of Dannevirke overnight. Fire services found it well alight on arrival.