A camper is destroyed by fire in the Door County town of Clay Banks May 27, 2025. PC: Fox 11 Online
DOOR COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A fire in which five calls to 911 could not be connected is raising more questions about the recent Cellcom outage.
The town of Clay Banks fire chief says a camper started on fire around midnight on Highway J. The camper’s owner called the fire chief’s cellphone, but was unable to reach 911. When he arrived on the scene, the chief was also unable to have a call to 911 connected.
Both have Cellcom as their cellphone service providers. Cellcom has had outages since May 14, which it has said resulted from a “cyber incident.” On Sunday, the company said many customers were seeing services come back online.
Cellcom released this statement Tuesday:
We are sorry to hear about the recent camper fire incident in Algoma. There are longstanding, industry-wide federal protocols in place to protect access to 911 during any carrier-specific outage. These protocols ensure that emergency calls are rerouted through other available networks during any carrier outage. We followed those protocols in full and our systems remained in compliance since the outage began.
The Door County Dispatch Center says there was nothing wrong with its 911 lines.
No one was injured in the fire. The camper was a total loss.
Firefighters say the cause of the fire is unknown.
Comments