Investigation launched after fire guts school gym
Police and the Fire Service are investigating a fire which gutted a high school gymnasium in the Wellington suburb of Rongotai this morning.
Police and the Fire Service are investigating a fire which gutted a high school gymnasium in the Wellington suburb of Rongotai this morning.
Firefighters in Canterbury are preparing to spend their Christmas Day battling a blaze that has so far burnt nearly 60 hectares of trees and pasture.
Canterbury firefighters continue to battle two major fires in the region, but both blazes are under control.
A massive blaze has engulfed the hills above Waimate in south Canterbury and tonight continues to burn.
Stretched Canterbury firefighters are battling two large scrub fires, one in Rolleston and one in Waimate.
Te Aroha locals are supporting the families of workers who lost their jobs when the local meatworks went up in flames.
'They're calling it a seasonal lay-off which is bull,' a worker at Silver Fern Farm's fire-hit Te Aroha factory says.
About 160 of the 350 workers at Silver Fern Farms' Waikato beef slaughter plant at Te Aroha are likely to only be paid a minimum wage until Christmas.
The 200 workers left jobless after a massive fire gutted a Waikato freezing works remain cautiously optimistic.
Sparks from a contractor's saw are believed to have ignited the fire that gutted a Waikato freezing works.
An operation has begun to extinguish the fire coming from the vent shaft of the Pike River mine and cool the surrounding concrete pad, using water pumped up from a nearby creek.