Port Hills fire updates: Amazing images show the extent of the damage from the air, and just how close it came to some properties.

A tree surgeon died in a London backyard after a his chainsaw apparently 'kicked back' into his neck.

Four homes were evacuated, but residents have since returned to their homes.

New Zealand is now experiencing the worst of the fire season, a top officer says, with a dangerous combination of high temperatures and low relative humidity creating tinder-dry conditions across eastern hot-spots.

At least four people have been killed in an avalanche in the ski resort of Tignes, in the French Alps.

A woman who survived a crash into Lake Wakatipu was initially trapped in her vehicle, police say.

Nobody appears to have been injured in a one-car crash near Twizel this afternoon.

The man who spent two hours trapped in a dam by an excavator has described how he survived in an emotional interview on the Today show.

EXCLUSIVE: Shelley Crooks has broken her silence on her miracle, six-week survival in the rugged West Coast bush.

An ambulance and rescue helicopter are on their way to the isolated scene.

The woman killed in a head-on collision on a rural Auckland road was found by her best friend, who sat with her for hours until her body could be removed.

Power is back on in hundreds of homes around the Auckland region after widespread outages overnight.

Mercury Energy is reviewing its procedures to see if it can improve safety after a woman was swept to her death by the surging waters of the Waikato River.

A dodgy escape route chosen by two bicycle thieves ended up with one of them and a police officer being rescued from a cliff face in Wellington.

The teenager who drowned after he was swept into the flooded Hutt River on Thursday was trying to rescue his friend.

Four people have been injured, one seriously, in a crash south-east of Auckland this afternoon.

Road remains closed after Karapiro crash that killed two.

A person has died after a truck crash near Christchurch.

Emergency services were called to the crash at the intersection of Lenore and Gadsby roads in Favona about 9.20pm.

Emergency services were called to the incident on a North Western Motorway off ramp just after 9.30pm.

A man has been taken to hospital in a critical condition after crashing his vehicle into a parked car in Highgate.

Police would like to speak to two young men who stopped to assist as they were driving past the house and saw flames.

St John has begun rolling out a new generation of ambulances equipped with stretchers that can carry heavier patients.

CONTENT WARNING: It's not just families and friends of victims who are affected, Suicide can take a toll on the people on the front line as well.

A video posted by the Russian Emergency Ministry captures firefighters saving about 150 pigs and piglets from a barn fire in a Siberian village.

Friends of the youngest of four people killed when a man drove into a crowd in Melbourne have spoken out, saying "we all feel helpless and hopeless at times like this".

Emergency services are making their way to an crash in the Dome Forest near Warkworth this afternoon.

The cause of the fire is not yet known.

Three people are injured after a pile-up north of Wellington.

District health boards are making their final preparations for the three-day strike by unionised resident doctors that starts tomorrow morning.