Four houses have been engulfed and destroyed and people are being evacuated as a large fire burns out of control south of Christchurch on Thursday, 10 January 2013.

An elderly firebug has been jailed for more than seven years today after lighting a series of forest fires south of Nelson.

A popular young Aucklander has died in a house fire at his Australian home, leaving his close-knit family devastated.

A small fire in the roof of Wellington Zoo's cafe may have been caused by a lightning strike.

A woman and her young nephew had a lucky escape after their home caught fire, causing severe damage to almost half the house.

An abandoned Wellington house was destroyed by a suspicious fire today. Smoke from the fire could be seen from as far away as Wellington Airport.

Eight people were rescued from a house fire in Auckland's suburb of Glen Eden this morning.

Christchurch fire crews were kept busy last night with two serious blazes across the city.

Fire safety officers will investigate a suspicious blaze at an unused timber mill at Kaitaia.

A police guard has been set up outside a derelict Greymouth house that was the target of a suspected arson attack early today.

Fire fighters attending a blaze north of Taupo tonight were greeted with a large explosion from inside a burning factory.

The sole occupant of a newly-renovated Dunedin home extensively damaged in a fire fled the inferno after she was woken by a smoke alarm.

The wildfire burning in and around Yosemite National Park has become the fourth-largest conflagration in modern California history.

One house has been destroyed and another damaged after two fires in the South Island overnight.

A truck laden with newspapers ignited in a dramatic fire in Canterbury early this morning.

An Otago teenager is lucky to have escaped serious injury after a fireball erupted when she was cooking in a Pine Hill house on Tuesday.

Suspicion surrounds a blaze that engulfed a red-zoned property in Kaiapoi, north of Christchurch, overnight.