Monday, July 06, 2015

Fire damages hangar at Lloyd Stearman Field Airport (1K1), Benton, Kansas

BENTON, Kan.. - Several Butler County fire units battled a fire at a hangar at Stearman Air Field, one mile southwest of Benton.

The first fire call came around 12:15 a.m. Monday. The extent of damage is not clear, but crews were fighting the fire more than one hour after it broke out. Crews from Andover, Augusta, Towanda and other communities were called into service.

The airport is owned by Benton Airpark Inc., and manager Dwayne Clemens lives on-site. The hangar where Clemens makes his home was damaged, but he escaped unharmed. No one was injured by the fire.

The airport was closed when the fire broke out, but planes were seen on a runway after sunrise as usual.

Statistics filed with the FAA show Stearman Air Field has two runways, with 170 aircraft based at the field. All but 20 of them are single-engine aircraft. Stearman handles an average 29 flights per day.

Source:  http://www.kake.com

BUTLER COUNTY, Kansas -

Investigators believe they know what started a fire at Stearman Air Field overnight, but are not releasing the information at this time. 

The call came in around 12:15 Monday morning, and the fire was extinguished about 2 hours later. However, crews stayed on scene to monitor hot spots throughout the morning. 

No one was hurt when the hangar caught fire in Butler County. Benton, Andover, Towanda, Augusta and Sedgwick County crews all worked to put the fire out.

 Butler County Emergency Management and Butler County EMS were also on scene.

Butler County Emergency Manager, Jim Schmidt, says the owner of the hangar has living quarters inside and  a family was home at the time.

The owner, his wife and a family dog were able to get out safely.

Schmidt says the man discovered the fire and tried to put it out, but then had to escape because of the smoke.

The hangar is heavily damaged with an aircraft and a vehicle inside.

Schmidt says crews were worried about the fire spreading to the hangars because of the wind.   He says the hangars are only about four feet from one another.   Crews were able to contain it to just the one hangar.

The owner of the building is working with investigators to determine a cause of the fire.  Right now, Schmidt says it appears to be accidental.

Source:  http://www.kwch.com




BENTON, Kansas    (KAKE)- Several Butler County fire units battled a fire at a hangar at Stearman Air Field, one mile southwest of Benton.

The first fire call came around 12:15 a.m. Monday.

The extent of damage is not clear, but crews were fighting the fire more than one hour after it broke out. Crews from Andover, Augusta, Towanda and other communities were called into service.

The airport is owned by Benton Airpark Inc., and manager Dwayne Clemens lives on-site.

The hangar where Clemens makes his home was damaged, but he escaped unharmed.

No one was injured by the fire.

The airport was closed when the fire broke out, but planes were seen on a runway after sunrise as usual.

Statistics filed with the FAA show Stearman Air Field has two runways, with 170 aircraft based at the field.

 All but 20 of them are single-engine aircraft.

Stearman handles an average 29 flights per day.

Source:  http://www.wibw.com



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