Local Residents

Family loses all in blaze Three find themselves homeless just six days before Christmas Posted: December 18, 2009   A St. Johns County Fire Rescue firefighter carries a fan to help clear out smoke from a home on Treasure Beach Road that caught fire on Thursday afternoon. By DARON DEAN, daron.dean@staugustine.com By CHAD SMITH Jimmy Retetagos was sleeping when he heard a woman yelling his and his brother's names Thursday afternoon. He woke up at about 12:45 and found his bedroom filled with smoke. "I could hardly see my way out," Retetagos said as firefighters inspected the charred remains of the trailer he, his brother and his niece shared at the west end of Treasure Beach Road. St. Johns County Fire Rescue spokesman Jeremy Robshaw said investigators were not sure how the fire started but think it originated in a rear bedroom. The trailer would likely be listed as a "total loss," Robshaw said. George Retetagos and his daughter, Alexis, weren't home when the fire started, and, he said, "By the time I got home, the place was halfway gone." They asked firefighters what, if anything, was salvageable. "The most important thing is the pictures of Mom and Dad," Jimmy Retetagos said. He was excited when a firefighter brought him his eyeglasses and then asked him to check a closet for family photographs. He and his brother are musicians and have a band dubbed The Coconuts. They had drums and several vintage guitars inside and were hoping those could be saved -- and they could still play a gig today at a retirement home. Their neighbor, Sandy Middlemiss, saw the smoke pouring out of the trailer and called 911. "I screamed so loud, both their names, that it woke Jimmy up," said Middlemiss, the mother-in-law of Morris Steinheimer, a physically handicapped man who was the center of a controversy in St. Augustine Beach last year when he was arrested after repeatedly driving his golf cart on sidewalks. "I think she saved my life," said Jimmy Retetagos, who seemed relieved just to be outside, away from the smoke. "You can get another trailer someplace. The pictures is the main thing, and the guitars. The house -- eh, big deal."