WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — One person died after a house exploded in Wichita on Sunday. The explosion sent flaming debris flying into neighbors’ yards.
Sedgwick County dispatchers said calls reporting an explosion came in around 5:30 p.m. Once fire crews arrived at the home, they started trying to put out the flames. Fireworks started to go off as firefighters fought the initial blaze, said Wichita Fire Department Battalion Chief Jose Ocadiz.
Neighbor Craig Hubbard described hearing a series of explosions. He caught one of the blasts on video.
“I just heard a huge explosion, like a bomb going off, and it rattled like the windows,” he said. “The third explosion happened as I was standing there, and debris landed everywhere.”
Hubbard said pieces of debris that looked like roof shingles landed in nearby yards, catching some of the grass on fire. Video Hubbard took shows him stomping out the flames.
Zach Sherman, who also lives in the neighborhood, said it felt like an earthquake.
“I heard like a booming sound and like the house shook and everything,” he said. “I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And then all of a sudden, we go outside and just see all the smoke coming up.”
Authorities have not released information about the victim or the cause of the explosion.
Sherman and Hubbard both said it was a shock for the neighborhood.
“Just crazy. It’s not something you expect, and I don’t know what went wrong. But It’s not something you expect in a neighborhood as quiet as this,” Sherman said.
“Pretty mellow neighborhood … everyone’s pretty mellow,” Hubbard said. “Nothing crazy ever happens, but yeah, that changed today for sure.”