Department of Conservation gives warning as ground crews launch another onslaught against a large scrub fire ripping through more than 300ha at Arthurs Pass.

The 29-year-old woman who suffered serious burns outside a Dunedin service station has been transferred to Middlemore Hospital's burns unit.

A scrub fire that spread across 330ha of the Southern Alps may have started in separate areas, police said yesterday as firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control.

A teenage farmhand became an accidental hero after keeping a potentially disastrous scrub fire at bay.

Two cyclists and a tractor driver could hold the key to working out how a massive scrub fire started near Arthurs Pass yesterday.

"I saw a person burning from the waist up". Witnesses have described their horror at seeing a woman catch fire at a Dunedin petrol station yesterday.

A woman is in hospital in Dunedin after suffering serious burns at a service station.

"We thought we had it covered''. An investigation has been launched into what caused a steam train to start 21 fires south of Oamaru.

A former Commonwealth Games gold medallist has praised firefighters' efforts to retrieve his medals and sporting memorabilia after a fire destroyed most of his Auckland home.

Firefighters were able to retrieve medals from the Auckland home of a former weightlifting gold medallist after it was badly damaged by fire last night.

The multimillion-dollar home of former Commonwealth Games weightlifting gold medallist Tony Ebert went up in flames late last night.

A French vacationer scrambled to throw as many valuables as he could out of a burning building yesterday - only to watch the grass around them catch fire.

Firefighters have been battling a number of large rural fires across the North Island.

Firefighters are working to control a blaze at a hay shed in New Plymouth this morning.

Rural fire crews have remained at the scene of a large grass fire in Seddon in Marlborough overnight.

An "immediate and large-scale response" has been credited with bringing a large grass fire in Marlborough under control.

A house fire which took the lives of an elderly couple living in their son's home at Tolaga Bay was caused by a pot left on a gas stove.

The son of an elderly couple who died in a house fire on Friday morning has paid tribute to his parents.

Armed police have been standing guard over the scene of a suspicious Whangarei fire but police won't say why guns were necessary.

A shed storing vintage steam engines in Ashburton was seriously damaged in a suspicious fire early today.

An elderly couple house-sitting a recently renovated property for their son were killed early yesterday when it went up in flames at Tolaga Bay, 50km north of Gisborne.

One person is dead and their elderly partner unaccounted for after a Tolaga Bay home they were house-sitting at was engulfed by a fire overnight.

'I wasn't involved,' says a man - jailed for a hostel fire in Australia which killed a tourist - whose house has been hit twice by fire in Wanganui.

A fire that started in a shopping trolley in a Wellington shopping centre is being treated as suspicious.

A Russian billionaire's workers are helping Maori plan a new Northland meeting house after a devastating fire.

A congested motorway north of Christchurch was closed briefly tonight after a smoky grass fire on the roadside.

A Christian early childhood centre in Christchurch escaped damage after a suspicious fire on the property last night.

Farmers and rural householders are being warned about starting fires after a "crazy" seven hours by South Island firefighters tackling small rural blazes today.

Two young women and two children escaped a blaze which destroyed a Napier house in less than half an hour and closed the city's busiest thoroughfare last night.