Thun Field Runway Reopens After Reconstruction Closure That Began July 27

The runway at Pierce County Airport-Thun Field in South Hill, Washington, reopened to traffic at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, Pierce County announced, after a reconstruction project that closed the airfield for more than three months. The closure began on July 27. The county said the project eliminates costly emergency repairs and preserves runway access for airport businesses, tenants, pilots and emergency services.

The 3,650-foot runway had not been reconstructed since 1988. The project widens it from 60 to 75 feet and includes drainage improvements, new lighting and other repaving; Safety in Motion Flight Center, which is based at the airport, also described the work as including realigned taxiway connectors.

The overhaul was reported at $7.56 million, with the Federal Aviation Administration contributing $7.18 million, the Washington Department of Transportation $181,000 and Pierce County $196,000. The project also carries an additional $736,000 in design costs.

Estimates of the new surface's lifespan differ. One account puts it at an average of 20 additional years, while airport manager Trent Smith was quoted by Flying magazine as saying the investment secures a 20-to-30-year runway lifespan.

The airport is used primarily for recreational aviation and flight instruction, and also supports wildfire response and medical evacuations. It recorded approximately 111,000 takeoffs and landings in 2024, an estimate, since the airport has no control tower. Pierce County said additional site work is expected to continue through mid-November, though it did not detail what that work involves.

At a general aviation field like Thun, the runway is the whole asset: flight schools, tenant businesses and emergency flying all depend on one strip, so a closure of more than three months idles every one of them at once. Schedules, instructor workloads and tenant revenue are tied to that single surface, which is why the county framed the project around avoiding emergency repairs and keeping access open.

The funding split shows how this class of airport is maintained. The FAA covered $7.18 million of the $7.56 million, leaving the state and county to supply about $377,000 between them. Public-use fields of this kind generally reach a full reconstruction through federal grant cycles rather than local budgets, and the design costs sit on top of the construction figure.

The next marker is the mid-November end of the remaining site work. Once it concludes, the 20-year and 20-to-30-year lifespan estimates will be tested by how the runway performs in service.