The head teacher at a Northland kindergarten has made a plea to the community to help catch the culprits who are destroying their playground with vandalism that now includes an arson attack.

Firefighters are battling a scrub fire in a remote part of rural Waikato this morning.

Two 14-year-old girls are being spoken to by police after a scrub fire which forced the evacuation of a shopping mall on Auckland's North Shore.

The fire was covering at least 1 hectare of tussock grass between the ocean and the airport. It was windy and the fire spreading fast, a Fire Service spokesman said.

A fire has significantly damaged two vehicle testing stations in a Nelson commercial building.

Forty years after 15 people died in the firebombing of Brisbane's Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub, controversy and conspiracy theories still surround what was until the Port Arthur massacre, Australia's worst mass murder.

A discarded cigarette butt has been blamed for a blaze that wreaked $250,000 worth of damage to a shed, vehicles and equipment at a Masterton garden supply firm.

About eight hectares of forest has been burned by a blaze in rural Masterton, with crews still on site last night to keep the fire under control.

Northland's tinder-dry conditions caused a quad bike fire to extend into a blaze which threatened homes and which took four fire crews and two helicopters to extinguish.

The body of an elderly woman who was trapped in her Wellington home as a fire ripped through will be recovered today.

Police will tomorrow start investigating the cause of a Wellington house fire that killed one elderly person today.

Fire destroyed more than 3ha of land and threatened homes in two separate Bay of Plenty blazes - one of which is believed to have been deliberately lit.

Three houses worth a total of almost $2.5 million in the Auckland suburb of Westmere will have to be rebuilt after an arson attack on one being renovated.

A large scrub fire in the Cashmere Hills above Christchurch could be seen clearly from the city overnight.

Terrified neighbours have spoken of explosions and flames leaping metres in the air as a suspicious fire ripped through three houses in a leafy Auckland suburb last night.

Firefighters have contained a blaze at Carter Holt Harvey's largest pulp and paper mill in Waikato this morning.

Emergency services have been called to a fire at a Rotorua paint shop early this morning where one person has been hospitalised.