The largest of three scrub fires that burned across the Western Bay of Plenty yesterday is believed to have been deliberately lit.

Police and fire safety officers are investigating the cause of a blaze that destroyed an upmarket Auckland home, almost killing the owner.

A person is understood to have died in a house fire in a remote rural area north of Napier last night.

A woman was dragged to safety by neighbours when an Orakei home exploded in flames last night.

The Jackass-influenced teenager who doused another person in petrol and set him on fire has been sentenced to three years in prison.

An explosion at a Hawke's Bay school was caused by a parent using a portable gas cooker incorrectly to cook homemade meat patties.

A Whangarei lunch bar and an office have been badly smoke-damaged after a deliberately-lit fire.

A gas cooker has exploded at a Hawkes Bay school, injuring one person, emergency services say.

Helicopters will join efforts to control a large bushfire this morning that has already burned more than 400ha of conservation land near Invercargill.

A fire safety lesson gone wrong threatened the lives of a mother and her two young children while they slept in the early hours of yesterday.

Seventy-four-year-old Eltham Fire Brigade volunteer Max Mackay has been awarded the United Fire Brigade association 50-year service medal.

A Fire Service has disagreed strongly with some earlier witnesses at the CTV inquest that there was confusion over leadership on February 22 last year.

Search and rescue units were told to stop scouring the collapsed CTV Building's rubble for survivors within 24 hours of it coming down.