A woman is in a critical condition in Wellington Hospital tonight after being struck by a vehicle near the city's airport.

Road blocks have been put in place and homes are being evacuated after a burn-off in Canterbury went out of control in high winds.

"One of the tyres exploded off it to the side of the road and set bush on the side of the road on fire."

The heroic efforts of two off-duty nurses help save the life of a young boy who lost consciousness at a popular swimming pool north-west of Auckland.

Staff of Signlink Graphics in Hokitika were in clean-up mode this morning after a blaze that took firefighters more than two hours to extinguish.

A mother was found dead on her living room floor after a nurse cancelled an ambulance that was just one minute away.

A scrub fire in Upper Hutt has forced homes to be evacuated, a firefighter to be hospitalised and roads to be closed.

The Waimate Hotel in Manaia, south of New Plymouth, has been destroyed by fire.

A child remains in a critical condition and a woman has been transferred to Auckland City Hospital after two people died in a crash in rural Waikato.

New Zealand's main ambulance service has warned it will need to hike charges or stop going to some emergencies.

We have a very good ambulance service, provided largely by volunteers and partly financed by charges to those who are taken to hospital in emergencies.

Two people are dead and four others injured - two critically, including a child - after a crash in Waikato yesterday afternoon.

The head of St John Ambulance has warned the Government it will stop sending some ambulances within two years because it can't guarantee patients' safety.

Marlene Dormer died as a lone ambulance officer struggled to keep her alive. Her daughter tells Martin Johnston that it's time to change an unsafe system.

Up to 12 fire trucks have been called out to the blaze on Ballymore Drive, in Pinehill, just after 4pm.

A woman who couldn't make a phone call asked for help on Reddit and a Kiwi reader came to the rescue.

A Police spokeswoman said the suspicious item in Mission Bay was a small blue chilly bin with suspicious contents.

The tragedy happened off the Ahipara Beach end of 90 Mile Beach about 4.40pm.

Police said two men on a small boat had got into some difficulty and were unable to get back to shore.

Twenty fire crews and a helicopter's been involved in the fire fight, which broke out on the hills behind Maidstone Park about 3:30 this afternoon.

A Coastguard skipper has described finding the man who clung to a petrol container for seven hours overnight after his boat capsized.

Emergency services were called to the speedway about 7pm, where the New Zealand Midget Championship is taking place this weekend.

A man was flown to hospital after being "bowled over by a cow" in Northland this afternoon, emergency services say.

A 56-year-old woman who spent a traumatic 14 hours trapped inside a lift "drew pictures and wrote poems" to keep herself calm.

Three people have been pulled out of the water in Raglan, after their boat overturned on the bar.

A Rotorua woman has been winched out of the Whakarewarewa Forest after a serious mountain bike accident.

Fire services have extinguished a grass fire in Onehunga which had consumed around 20 square metres of land.