A Vancouver Island old-growth protest camp says its code explicitly prohibits property damage and rejects any insinuation it was involved in suspected arson that damaged logging equipment on Jan. 2, while Lake Cowichan RCMP say they have no direct link to the group beyond the camp’s proximity.
What burned, and where
Lake Cowichan RCMP say they responded on Friday, Jan. 2, just after 9 a.m., to a report of multiple burned-out logging vehicles along the Caycuse mainline. In the detachment’s Jan. 7 news release, File #2026-7, police say the fires had occurred overnight and the machines were found smouldering at about 7 a.m. that morning.
Officers attended two different locations on the Caycuse forest service road, about 45 minutes from Lake Cowichan, and found three forest industry machines damaged by fire. The machines were two grapple yarders and a log loader, and police say they sustained more than $530,000 in damage.
Canadian Press reporting identifies the site as one operated by Fraser Valley Timber. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but media reports quoted a spokesman suggesting the proximity of the protest camp was not a coincidence.
RCMP say the investigation is continuing and further information may be shared as it becomes available. Anyone with information is asked to call Lake Cowichan RCMP at 250-749-6668.
Police: no direct link at this stage
Sgt. Kevin Mack with Lake Cowichan RCMP says investigators are keeping an “open eye to all possibilities.” He says they do not have “any direct link to the protest group right now, other than the proximity of their camp,” which is about half an hour away by road from the Fraser Valley Timber site.
Mack also says investigators had not spoken to the occupants of the protest camp in the Upper Walbran Valley at the time the statements were made. That distinction — proximity, but no established link and no interviews yet with the camp — is the position police placed on the record while the protest group was responding to public suggestion of involvement.
The blockade’s response
The Walbran Valley Blockade protest camp says its code “explicitly prohibits violence and the damage or destruction of property.” In its statement, the group says it supports a full and transparent investigation and that “assigning blame before the facts are known serves to vilify forest protectors.”
The statement says the group remains committed to a “peaceful presence, accountability, and truth, and will continue to act in accordance” with its code of conduct. It describes the suggestion of involvement as an insinuation, rather than a finding by police.
A longer dispute in the valley
The fire took place in an area where logging and protest have overlapped for months. Tsawak-qin Forestry Limited Partnership and Tsawak-qin Forestry Inc. have been logging in the old-growth area since August 2025. Police have made a total of 15 arrests as they enforce a court injunction allowing the logging to proceed.
That context explains why an equipment fire drew immediate speculation, and also why both police and the camp were careful, in different ways, about what had actually been established by Jan. 7. Police had confirmed the date, the locations on the Caycuse road, the types of machines and the estimate of damage. They had not, on the record available that day, identified a cause beyond the suspected arson under investigation, named a suspect, or linked the fires to any person or group.
