Council spokeswoman Rebekah Duffin said the destruction of the Wilderland farm would be a huge blow to the area.

A Toyota Altezza was set alight in a carpark near Invercargill.

A fire which burned through 100ha of hillside near Arthur's Pass last week and four more fires on Saturday are suspected to be the work of an arsonist.

A person is injured and homes threatened during an overnight house fire.

A vegetation fire is burning out of control on a sandspit at the bottom of the South Island.

A large vegetation fire that came within five metres of a new Blenheim subdivision and forced the evacuation of 60 homes was deliberately lit, authorities have confirmed.

Crews battling a suspicious vegetation fire near Blenheim are facing challenging conditions.

A bush fire which threatened homes near Blenheim this afternoon is being treated as suspicious.

A 20-year-old Kaipara man is appearing in the Whangarei District Court today on one charge of arson.

A property has been extensively damaged after a house fire near Westport on Friday night.

Police are confident a white van seen in the area did not cause the blaze. They are now looking for a dark coloured station wagon.

The fire near Queenstown which destroyed 150ha of native scrub was likely caused by a campfire, authorities have found.

A 200-litre drum of nitric acid was punctured by a forklift in West Auckland this afternoon, injuring two people.

A huge scrub fire that has destroyed 150ha near Queenstown is now under control but it's still going to take days to put out as police investigate the cause.

Several blazes over the past 24 hours have kept firefighters across the country on their toes.

The cause of the tragic fire that killed three members of a Flat Bush family just before Christmas remains undetermined.

One person has been seriously injured in a fire on Waiheke Island.

The fire that cut off a small community near Queenstown is now under police investigation.

Firefighters have extinguished a blaze at a medical centre in South Auckland.

But at least they managed to escape thanks to smoke alarms.

Auckland firefighters have blacklisted a fleet of new fire trucks after water was reduced to a trickle with firefighters inside a burning house.

A kohanga reo has gone up in smoke in the central North Island.

SUP080117NADFIRE3.JPGA number of suspicious or carelessly-lit fires, like this one at Pipiwai on Saturday has sparked a total fire

Motorists travelling between the West Coast and Canterbury today were urged to go through Lewis Pass after an early morning fire at

Rural fire crews were confronted with another flare-up this morning at Mahia after a night of damping and monitoring a major grass and scrub fire.

Rocks have been cleared from the road and drivers should travel with caution.

South-westerlies dominating the country this summer will continue to deliver wind and cloud to large parts of the country today.

Helicopters are on their way to a scrub fire in a remote South Island mountainous region.

The three children aged five, eight and nine have been referred to Youth Aid.

Firefighters are pleading with people in the top half of the North Island to get a permit before lighting fires outside.