A large service outage in Miramichi due to an attempted copper theft.

Police say there was an attempt to steal wire sometime between Monday night and early Tuesday morning from a telephone pole at the end of Chapel Road.

This knocked out Bell and Rogers services with repair costs estimated at around $30,000.

Contractors worked Tuesday to get everyone back online.

Meantime, a homeowner on North Napan Road in Miramichi was unable to call 911 after a fire broke out in a century-old farmhouse Tuesday afternoon.

This was due to the outage after the attempted copper theft.

When volunteer firefighters got there, it was a challenging battle due to the many renovations to the home.

It took more than six hours to extinguish the fire, but no one was hurt. There’s no word on a cause.

Police are asking anyone with information about the attempted copper theft to contact them.