A piece of equipment on a drilling truck which caught fire caused smoke to pour down a central Wellington street earlier today.

A person has been saved from a house fire in Christchurch early this morning.

Police are investigating after a police patrol car was set alight in Pukekohe overnight.

A large fire has engulfed a cool store and pack house building near Te Puke overnight.

Police could only stand back and watch as fire destroyed a 10m yacht south of Auckland yesterday.

Police are investigating a suspected arson at a Woodville property where a man was killed last month.

A fire at a Westfield mall in West Auckland that sparked a mass evacuation has been extinguished, with the mall reopened to the public.

A house has been destroyed by fire in the central Auckland suburb of Onehunga this morning.

A helicopter is being used to dampen hot spots following an eight hectare fire in the Wellington suburb of Wainuiomata overnight.

A couple of close calls prove life is a series of tests, writes Steve Braunias.

A fire has ripped through the Torch in Dubai - one of the tallest residential buildings in the world.

Deliberately-lit property fires in Dunedin's student quarter could kill someone, a detective investigating the case warns.

A Kumeu cafe has been gutted by a fire which took hold overnight.

'I just couldn't believe it.' Nineteen-year-old Kyle Thom was out with mates early yesterday when he was told his Dunedin flat was on fire.

Windows exploded as a Dannevirke woman and three young children ran from a blazing home with flames licking at their backs.

Firefighters were this afternoon battling a blaze which engulfed a North Shore house. A Fire Service spokeswoman said "half of Auckland" contacted emergency services about the fire on Upper Harbour Drive, Greenhithe, about midday.

Firefighters were this afternoon battling a blaze which engulfed a North Shore house.

A young family are devastated after a major house fire wrecked their suburban home this afternoon.

"It's a little unusual to say the least." A teen's been left "shaken" after he disturbed an armed intruder trying to set fire to a couch in his Fairlie home.

A fire burning in a Timaru building which sparked evacuations this morning appears to have burnt itself out.

A team of rural firefighters spent 20 hours battling strong winds, dry, inhospitable terrain and a blaze which took out 10ha of Wairarapa scrub, bush and farmland yesterday.

Wind has blown down power lines in central Auckland, cutting power to 1300 homes in Newmarket.

The firefighting pilot who escaped a helicopter crash unscathed says he's happy nobody was hurt and doesn't think mechanical failure or pilot error caused the crash.

Large plumes of black smoke from a commercial building fire in central Tauranga could be seen rising above the city's skyline this morning.