Cooking oil left burning on stoves has caused serious burns to an elderly lady and left a young family homeless in two separate house fires in Whangarei over the weekend.

The death of a 39-year-old at an onshore oil rig in Taranaki today remains unexplained.

A person suffered facial burns following a house fire in Wainoni, Christchurch, this morning.

A 96-year-old woman had to be rescued from the 11th floor of a central Auckland apartment building yesterday when a large fire broke out.

A Riwaka man has been helicoptered to Hutt Hospital's specialist burns unit after falling into a bonfire in the early hours of this morning.

Fire crews are battling a house fire in Wanganui this morning.

A 34-year-old man has been charged with arson over a huge fire that destroyed part of a Wellington storage facility.

A huge fire has engulfed a Chilean port city registered as a World Heritage site for its historic collection of wooden buildings and railways.

A raging fire leaped from hilltop to hilltop in the colorful port city of Valparaiso, killing at 11 people and destroying over 500 homes.

A North Korean official has been executed with a flame-thrower, South Korean media has reported.

Residents in a block of four North Shore flats rushed to wake each other up after a fire ripped through their building last night.

Fire services were called to a fire at a geothermal power plant in the Bay of Islands last night.

Fire investigators will inspect the damage at a Wellington storage facility this morning after a huge blaze ripped through the building yesterday.

Smoke from a fire which has been burning for more than 12 hours at a Wellington storage unit is not a major health threat, medical authorities say.

Wellington Fire Service assistant area commander Paul Smith said they were waiting on heavy machinery to open up the unit.