Be ready ‘for anything’ after wildfires hit telecom lines, official warns

Telecommunications provider Northwestel reported telephone, internet and long distance services had been disrupted over the weekend after fibre optic lines were damaged.

Wildfires continue to rage across parts of western Canada and this past weekend, some communities were left without a way to communicate through internet or phone after fibre optic lines were damaged by the flames.

Telecommunications provider Northwestel, which provides service to Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and parts of northern B.C., reported telephone, internet and long-distance services had been disrupted.

The Yukon, northern B.C. and Beaufort Delta and Mackenzie Valley regions of Northwest Territories saw themselves with internet, long distance and mobility issues, with long distance impacted in Nunavut, and intermittent internet in Yellowknife and the South Slave region.

Service has since been restored, but Northwestel says it was the first time they’ve seen this impact in its history.

“This really was a bit of a perfect storm,” Northwestel’s vice-president of customer experience Tammy April told Global News.

“We had two fires that really went from no fire to incredible blaze within a matter of hours of each other. So we had our east-west (fibre) route fail late afternoon on Friday, and it was within about five hours that we had our north-south route fail.”

April said the company has geographically diverse routes to ensure protections of its services, but in this case both were impacted.

The interruptions left questions about the reliability of telecoms during disasters like wildfires.