Chase the sun north to a proud town where Elisabeth Easther finds a warm welcome and a fascinating history.

About 60 fire service staff battled a fierce blaze at a Northland plastics factory overnight.

A fire at a Dargaville fertiliser plant has been contained and has been brought under control by the fire service.

Fire north communications shift inspector Scott Osmond said about three hectares of vegetation were off Waipoua Settlement Rd in the Kaipara district were involved in fire.

Two teenagers have been arrested in relation to an armed robbery of a Dargaville Service Station on Saturday night.

An army trainee died when a vehicle he was travelling in crashed with an "almighty bang" into a power pole near Dargaville on Friday night.

A man was killed and four others injured, one critically, when a car hit a power pole in Northland last night.

A 17-year-old boy has drowned at Kai Iwi Lakes near Dargaville despite desperate attempts by his three young friends to revive him.

A Northland man who had been repairing Queensland roads damaged in floods in 2010 and 2011 has been stranded in Bundaberg as a result of ex-cyclone Oswald.

Footage from the police Taser gun allegedly used by a woman against a Northland policeman during a vicious assault is now being used as potential evidence against the attackers.

A mob attack on a Waikato policeman on Christmas Day came soon after another two police officers were hospitalised following a brutal attack in Dargaville.

A woman allegedly used a brick as a weapon and tried to shoot a police officer with his own taser in a brutal attack by a group of youths on Christmas Day.

A judge declined home detention for a Dargaville man who admitted viewing child pornography and sent him to prison for 15 months.

A three-year-old girl who was run over in a marae carpark near Dargaville on Saturday is in a stable condition in Starship Children's Hospital.

A man who sexually violated a 73-year-old Dargaville woman in her home, dressed in some of her clothes and beat her up has been sentenced to nine years in jail.

A 22-year-old man is dead and three others seriously injured after an overloaded car lost control and landed in a ditch in Northland early this morning.

Eight elderly people who were injured when their van rolled in Northland have been discharged from hospital tonight. An elderly woman was killed in the crash.