Images are starting to come out of Kaikoura where widespread damage and one death has occurred.

A resident is calling for the state house where a woman died after it suspiciously caught fire to be demolished. Linda Winifred Edwards

A popular Auckland shopping mall was evacuated this morning after a fire broke out at a baby shop.

Fire gutted a classroom at the former Kenmure Intermediate School site in Dunedin this morning.

Police have named the woman who died after an Auckland house fire on Tuesday.

Three fire trucks are rushing to a bushfire in the Far North.

Smoke alarm alerts pair to fire.

Firefighters use water pumped from the ocean to fight an overnight blaze.

Police investigate a fatal house fire in Mt Roskill.

Tim and Fiona Noble have lost all possessions and the home in which their children grew up - and grandkids loved to visit - has been destroyed by fire.

"Use some common sense," NSW's rural fire chief told the bushfire selfie taker. Social media users were more blunt: "Seriously mate, grow a brain!"

A dinghy found floating near Brown's Island may be connected to the mysterious fire there, police have confirmed.

Initial fears people may be inside soon passed.

Using paint and rocks, a woman deserted on an Auckland island for three nights wrote "Help me" on the beach.

The Fire Service received 402 calls to the emergency 111 line last night.

Emergency services are at the scene of a serious house fire in South Auckland.

Strong wind gusts are hampering the efforts of more than 600 firefighters who are fighting to contain 36 bush and grass fires across the state.

A fire that was rapidly spreading down a cliff in swanky Auckland suburb St Heliers has been extinguished.

Woman found on Browns Island was stranded for three nights before being rescued.

Ezibuy is recalling a lamp over fire safety fears.

Drugs were allegedly found in the vicinity of a fire in an industrial unit on Burrows St today. A police spokeswoman told the Bay

Neighbours kicked in the door and broke windows of a burning house to check if anyone was inside.

A 49-year-old man faces six methamphetamine charges after a fire in Milford on Auckland's North Shore yesterday.

A baby has been injured in a large house fire in West Auckland this morning.

A commercial fishing vessel is at the centre of a gas leak in Tauranga this morning.

One man said he was driving along Beach Road in Milford when the ground shook, and a building exploded.

A blaze which killed a man at a block of flats in Invercargill does not appear to be suspicious, a Fire Service authority says.

A fire has affected the Maniototo Arts Centre in Ranfurly this morning.

A person screamed for sleeping residents to flee their homes as fire raced through a block of Invercargill flats early today.