Man dies in rural house fire north of Wichita

Firefighters battling a house fire in rural Sedgwick County on Friday morning found the body of a man in the basement of an addition that was nearly completed, authorities said.

The victim, a man in his mid-40s, was not breathing when he was discovered at 8:26 a.m. in the 5100 block of North Ridge Road in rural Sedgwick County, authorities said.

Firefighters found the victim shortly before 8:30 a.m., a Sedgwick County emergency dispatcher said.

The man was pronounced dead at 8:29 a.m. The house fire was reported at 7:45 a.m., and fire crews from Sedgwick County and the city of Wichita responded, the dispatcher said.

Smoke was visible upon arrival, but flames were not, Sedgwick County Fire Chief Tavis Leake said.

“They had to find the fire,” Leake said.

The man was found in the basement and brought outside next to a swimming pool, where he was pronounced dead. At this point, Leake said, there’s no reason to believe the man’s death is suspicious.

Investigators from the Sedgwick County Fire Department and the state fire marshal’s office are on scene to investigate, he said.

“It’s still really early right now to tell where it started,” Leake said of the fire.

A neighbor said the man had purchased the property perhaps a year ago and was building a large addition to the old house on the property. He had already added an outdoor swimming pool and volleyball court next to the older part of the house.

The man and his wife and child were not yet living at the property, she said, but it was not uncommon for someone to spend the night there after working late on the addition.

Authorities have not yet released the victim’s identity. Relatives were taken to an intersection perhaps a half-mile south of the fire scene, where they huddled close together for support and warmth against a sometimes nippy early morning breeze.

This story was originally published October 24, 2014 at 8:55 AM with the headline "Man dies in rural house fire north of Wichita."