The man who died in a Waiheke Island boat fire this week had fallen on hard times, tumbling from a career in architecture into a life of alcohol and transience.

A distressed man with burns on his face, arms and hands tried desperately to get help for his friend who died in a boat fire at Waiheke Island last night.

One person has died and another suffered burns after a launch moored at Waiheke Island caught fire last night.

Firefighters are battling a large scrub fire near Dunedin.

A team of firefighters is keeping watch over an Auckland school which was badly damaged in a fire last night.

At least 60 firefighers were brought in to tackle the blaze in the technology block of Northcote College its height last night. The fire was spotted by a security guard shortly before 8pm.

A building has caught fire at Northcote College, on Auckland’s North Shore.

A fire has broken out at a freezing works operation in Mataura.

An LPG tanker that caught fire early today is blocking a Waikato road, police say.

The teenager who perished in Saturday morning's ferocious house blaze in Christchurch was found dead in his bed, police say.

Thirteen years have passed since the day New York firefighter John Mills' life changed forever.

Two abandoned Christchurch houses have been seriously damaged in suspicious fires early today.

A man was killed yesterday after a controlled burn-off on a 13,000 ha station in Otago, which was so big it was visible from the town of Cromwell.

A specialist police squad negotiated with a man in a rural Far North home for about four hours before he was found dead in a house fire caused by an explosive device.

Police were negotiating with a man later found dead in a house fire in Northland early this morning after a firearms incident.