A former ambulance driver who indecently assaulted vulnerable patients in the back of his ambulance isn't sure why he did it.

St John paramedic Mechelle Wharton wasn't going to let a broken leg stop her saving a child.

Power is back on in most areas of Timaru after a major blackout when a substation caught fire this morning.

Up to 100 fires are burning across NSW as a large swathe of the state begins a day of total fire bans.

Vast tracts of South Australia are preparing for another baking day of catastrophic fire risk after yesterday's 40C-plus temperatures.

A 20-year-old woman is dead and seven injured after an overloaded vehicle rolled near Swanson in west Auckland, this afternoon.

Panic erupts as a fireworks show in Whakatane goes wrong during a hectic night across the country for fire services.

The man killed in a fire on his South Auckland farm was the husband of district court judge Jane Lovell-Smith.

'It's a bloody terrible thing ... that was my baby girl,' said distraught dad Daniel Thompson after a driveway tragedy that killed his baby daughter.

A second toddler has been driven over in the space of 24 hours and is in Tauranga Hospital with serious head injuries.

Police have named a toddler who died after a vehicle driven by her father hit her on the driveway of their Waikato home.