The Burns Lake RCMP are investigating reports of copper theft near the Sheraton rest stop on Highway 16, just west of Burns Lake, the suspected cause of yesterday’s widespread telecommunications outage in Northwestern BC.
According to information provided to police, a length of copper wire had been stolen from near the Sheraton rest stop early Monday morning, May 4th, and the local fiber optic line had been severed in the process – knocking telecommunications offline for large parts of the Northwest.
TELUS had reported that yesterday’s widespread outage began around 3:18 a.m. and they said it had been caused by damage to their infrastructure related to a cable theft. RCMP were officially notified just before 9:30 a.m.
Staff Sergeant Kris Clark Senior Media Relations Office with RCMP E Division HQ, says police are taking the matter extremely seriously, as the resulting network outage caused by the cable theft potentially put lives at risk.
The RCMP have now asked anyone who may have witnessed anything at the Sheraton rest stop, and those who drove through the area early Monday morning with dash cam footage to contact investigators. Police are especially interested in dashcam video from Highway 16 between Burns Lake and Fraser Lake between the hours of 2:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. from Monday, May 4th, 2026.
Anyone with any information has been urged to contact the Burns Lake RCMP at 250-692-7171.
