Kilgore Flares

Kilgore Flares Company, LLC, an operating company within the Chemring Countermeasures USA business group of Chemring Group, is a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of advanced expendable countermeasures and countermeasures suites, and serves as the sole-source IR decoy flare supplier for some of the world's most sophisticated and advanced airborne platforms.

Kilgore Flares was the first expendable IR decoy flare manufacturer to introduce full automation to the decoy manufacturing process, bringing a new level of safety and quality to the market. Kilgore's automated facilities produce pressed, extruded and cast IR decoy flares at a rate that far out-strips other manufacturers. This capability, coupled with Kilgore’s strict compliance to ISO 9001:2000 requirements and Lean Six Sigma techniques, further bolstered with the highest levels of personnel and equipment safety, assures the customer of unprecedented quality and on-time delivery.

Complementing Kilgore Flares’ airborne expendable IR decoy flare capabilities is its in-depth expertise in energetic products. These products span the breadth of marine location markers, ignition cartridges (such as primers used in 120mm tank ammunition), illuminating cartridges (such as the MK-4 used in aerial practice bombs) and illuminating flares (such as the LUU-1/B). Furthermore, Kilgore Flares is the only US-based commercial producer of red phosphorus based defense products.

Through its fully staffed technology center of excellence, Kilgore Flares is able to provide unique countermeasure or energetic item designs, as well as unique energetic composition solutions reflective of dynamic industry requirements. This capability provides the customer with a “cradle to grave” paper to production service at a single stop, under one roof, unlike any other in this industry.

For more information, please email us at contact@kilgoreflares.com.

Company History

Kilgore Flares Company, LLC was founded in Westerville, OH in 1920 and has been associated with pyrotechnics throughout its 90 year existence. During World War II, the company became a key Department of Defense Ordnance Manufacturer. Kilgore Flares relocated to Toone, TN in1960, where the company utilizes a 264-acre main production site and an additional 242-acre test site. Kilgore Flares was acquired in 2001 by Chemring Group PLC, a British company with operations throughout the world.