Canadian police were called out to another cell tower fire in St John's, Newfoundland, yesterday after numerous fires were reported over the weekend.

As reported by various Canadian press outlets, the St. John’s Regional Fire Department and criminal investigators with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (RNC) responded to a call yesterday evening at a cell phone tower site in St Johns at around 7:15 pm.

The timing of the fire came hours after the RNC said it was investigating five fires over the weekend across the St John's area that are said to have also targeted telecoms infrastructure.

CBC reports that yesterday's fire occurred at a Bell cell phone tower on Nagles Place, in the Pippy Park area of St. John’s.

Locals reported seeing smoke coming from the cell tower, which was described as being significantly damaged.

"I won't get into what's there but I can say this wasn't accidental. What's happened here to this tower — and it will come out in the investigation — this was no accident," said Mike Hall, platoon chief, St. John's Regional Fire Department.

The police are looking into whether yesterday's fire is linked with the five over the weekend.

Investigators believe the fires have targeted phone poles and areas with phone lines across St John's, which is the capital of Newfoundland.

The first fire was reported on a pole line off Linegar Avenue in the Shea Heights neighborhood just after 11 am on Saturday (July 18), before a second fire was reported close to Linegar Avenue at 1:35 pm, and a third was reported on nearby Southside Road at around 3:45 pm.

A further two fires were reported on Sunday (July 19), with the first near the Team Gushue Highway on George's Pond Road, before a second happened in a wooded area off Old Pennywell Road.

Although arson attacks against cell tower infrastructure are few in number, such incidents do happen.

Attacks against 5G infrastructure were common back in 2020, fueled by misinformation online. During the height of the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020, there were several false conspiracy theories shared online suggesting that 5G was causing the spread of the virus.

It led mobile operators to urge the conspiracists to stop attacking the infrastructure and spreading misinformation on the Internet.

In 2020, a man from Liverpool, England, was sentenced to three years in jail for setting fire to a telephone mast due to his belief that 5G was linked to the Coronavirus.

Earlier this year, police in Belfast, Northern Ireland, charged two men for a series of arson attacks on 5G masts.

Meanwhile, in the US, a tower arsonist was sentenced to six and a half years in prison in 2024 for causing approximately $1.1 million worth of damage at several towers. Sean Aaron Smith set out to "destroy the 5G towers because he hated the government and believed they were spying on him."