Cellphone Tower Catches Fire in North Minneapolis
NORTH MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA- A cellphone tower in North Minneapolis caught fire early Thursday morning, August 28, 2025, briefly raising concern in the surrounding neighborhood before firefighters brought the blaze under control.
At approximately 12:38 a.m., flames were reported on a 1,000-foot cellphone tower located near the intersection of North 2nd Street and West Broadway. Records indicate the tower is a shared structure operated by AT&T Wireless and CCATT LLC, a subsidiary of Crown Castle. Additional equipment on the tower includes an antenna for Sprint Nextel, now T-Mobile, with records showing that this antenna provides 4G service in the area.
Crews from the Minneapolis Fire Department arrived on scene within minutes of the initial call. Firefighters worked quickly to contain the blaze and successfully had it under control by around 1:00 a.m. At this time, we are not aware of any reported injuries. Authorities have not yet released details about what may have caused the fire. Minneapolis Police and Fire officials have been contacted for further information, and an investigation is underway.
Telecommunications Impact
It is not immediately clear whether the fire caused any disruptions to wireless service in the area. We have reached out to Crown Castle and T-Mobile for comment on this incident and are awaiting a response regarding the potential impacts on coverage and the area, as well as the duration of any resulting effects. With multiple carriers sharing the structure, officials will likely coordinate with providers to assess potential outages or damage to equipment.
Verizon Nationwide Outage on August 30, 2025
Just two days after this incident, on Saturday, August 30, 2025, Verizon experienced a widespread wireless service outage affecting thousands of customers across the U.S., including Minneapolis. Reports began surfacing on Saturday, August 30, 2025, shortly after 11:00 a.m. Central Time, with service disruptions intensifying through the afternoon and peaking around 3:30 p.m., resulting in over 23,000 reported incidents nationwide. We had received numerous messages from users across the Twin Cities asking if we had heard any news on a possible outage.
The company attributed the disruption to a software issue, confirming in a statement that "engineers are engaged" and working toward resolution. Outage data showed major metro areas affected include Los Angeles, Chicago, Orlando, Tampa, Atlanta, Miami, Omaha, Indianapolis, and notably Minneapolis. Many users reported their phones displaying “SOS mode only”, allowing only emergency calls.
Verizon began restoring service later that evening, directing customers to check the network status page for updates.
As of now, there is no confirmed connection between this outage and the cellphone tower fire in Minneapolis two days earlier. While both incidents potentially have affected wireless services in the area, a physical fire at the infrastructure caused one, and the other stemmed from a software-related network issue, according to Verizon. Further investigation may clarify any direct or indirect links, but it is likely that they were not connected.
Written by: Will Wight
Video provided by: John Woodward
