KAKE – December 9, 2013
A man in his 80s has died following a house fire Sunday morning in northeast Wichita.
The man and his son were at their home in the 1500 block of N. Erie when the fire started, Capt. Stuart Bevis of the Wichita Fire Department said.
Firefighters were called around 8:45 a.m. to a report of a house fire with a person possibly trapped inside the home. The home on N. Erie is near 14th Street and Hillside. Smoke and flames were visible when crews arrived.
Neighbor James Bonner says he was woken up by his children to the commotion.
“I looked across the street and I just seen flames and I was just like, ‘Oh my God,’” Bonner said.
He says he grabbed his coat and ran down the street to find the man’s son standing in front of the burning home.
“That’s when I went to his son and said, ‘Where’s your dad? Where’s your dad?,” Bonner said. “That’s how I knew he was in the house.”
The son, a man in his 50s, told Bonner and arriving fire crews that he had tried to rescue his father and that his father was likely still inside.
“There was an indication that he was trying to get him out, trying to fight the fire,” Bevis said. “But the smoke got (to be) too much, he had to get low and go, go out. He couldn’t get his dad out.”
Crews attempted their own rescue.
“They had fire every step of the way getting into that house,” Bevis said.
Sadly, not long later, they made a devastating discovery.
“They performed a fire attack and during that process, they did locate an occupant inside and determined he was already deceased,” Bevis said.
Bevis did not release the man’s name but confirmed the man was the father of the other man who escaped the fire.
Bonner talked to the son just minutes after the flames were put out. He says the son is not injured but he is in shock.
Bonner says the son told him his father had been trying to warm something up on a space heater when the fire started.
Bevis says he can’t confirm that story because the fire is still under investigation. The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.
Early Sunday evening, Bevis told KAKE News that crews had determined a damage estimate of $60,000 to the structure of the home and $20,000 to the contents.
No matter the cause, Bonner and others in the community say the kind, older man did not deserve this.
“I just hate to hear he had to go like that,” Bonner said. “I pray for him and his family.”
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