5G phone mast 'set on fire deliberately' as VodafoneThree 'support police probe'

Daily Record

7 hours ago

The telecoms giant said a firebug started the blaze.
Scots 5G mast destroyed by flames
A Scots 5G mast which went ablaze leading to nearby residents being evacuated was started deliberately, a mobile phone company has said.
The blaze tore through the mobile phone mast late on Wednesday June 19, leading to residents and vehicles being evacuated from the Ardrossan street in North Ayrshire.
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Enough much damage was caused to the radio antenna for the company to then take the mast down.
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VodafoneThree, the network which owns the mast, have now said the blaze last week was started deliberately.
The newly-merged mobile phone company also said they are assisting Police Scotland with a probe into the incident.
A VodafoneThree spokesperson told the Record: "A mast in Stanley Road was damaged earlier this month in an arson attack.
"The equipment has been safely removed and we are working to bring the site back online as quickly as possible.
" Service is being provided by nearby sites but customers may notice a degradation in service while we bring the site back online.
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"We are supporting the police as they conduct their enquiries."
We told previously how locals in the Ayrshire town were woken from their beds in the early hours of the morning as flames tore through the mast, inches from a park.
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Residents were later allowed to return to their properties as work to extinguish the blaze and make the mast safe continued. The clear-up operation in the town's Stanley Road lasted until around 4am on Thursday June 19, and the road was shut and cordoned off by police.
The cordon ran from outside the Stanleys Kitchen Chinese takeaway to the junction with St Andrew's Road, at the other side of the park, and the road was closed for around eight hours. One local said: "We got woken up at about 1am with the door being rattled so we could move our cars. We had no clue it was on fire, we were in such a deep sleep.
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"It must have happened just before midnight last night. They were drilling and there was a fire engine there until about 3.45am this morning. The road was shut from the Chinese to the other junction at St Andrew's Road. They reopened the road about 9am, there were firefighters back sweeping the road this morning. It's just the path next to it that's closed now."
Another local said: "There's a park right next to the mast which has a football pitch and goals. The kids from the nearby streets play in it all day, every day. It's just as well this happened at night, because if it had happened during the day then it could have been much, much worse. I dread to think how it could've turned out."
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Pictures showed the body of the mast and the top of it charred black, with the box at the bottom also fire damaged. Debris from the mast was left strewn across the road.
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A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson previously said: "We were alerted at 11.41pm on Wednesday, June 18, to reports of a telephone mast on fire in Ardrossan.
"Operations Control mobilised one appliance to the town's Stanley Road, where firefighters were met by a well-developed fire. Crews worked to make the area safe before leaving the scene."
A Police Scotland spokesperson had also said: "Around 12.10am on Thursday, June 19, 2025, we received a report of a mast fire on Stanley Road, Ardrossan and officers attended to assist."
No new statement was provided by the force regarding VodafoneThree's support of any inquiry.