Twomey Ave. fire victims left homeless, focused on caring for youngest child,
an 18-year-old battling leukemia

Lee Krueger circled his Twomey Avenue home Sunday afternoon, towing a plastic trash can and picking up small pieces of burnt rubble strewn about the yard. The plastic blue tarp covering the giant hole in the roof of the 19th century farmhouse flapped noisily in the wind. The stunned and sad homeowner, who works as a manager for a construction company on the South Fork, looked up at the tarp and shook his head.

“It’s hard to believe,” he said.

Krueger and his wife were away for the weekend in Pennsylvania when their son called yesterday to tell them their house was on fire. They raced home and arrived after the fire department had done its job, stopping the attic fire in its tracks and saving the family’s home.

The odor of smoke lingered in the air around the house despite the winds blowing off the surrounding farm fields. Inside the home, the air is thick with it.

“I smell like smoke,” Krueger’s wife Raven says as she embraces her sister Jennifer and mother Barbara. “Everything smells like smoke.”

There’s a trail of soot and water on the first floor, but the heaviest damage is in the upstairs bedrooms. The third-story attic, where the fire started, is completely burnt; everything in it destroyed. The bedrooms below suffered damage from smoke, water and heat. The fire’s heat actually melted plastic items in the bedrooms.

The Kruegers’ youngest son, Tristin, 18, had been using the attic for his bedroom the past few months, Raven Krueger said. “He moved upstairs to make room for his brother, Deren and his wife and daughter, who came to stay here for a while.” They are about to relocate to Arizona, she said.

“Tristin lost everything in the fire,” his mother said. “He got out with only the clothes on his back.” His sister Caraline, 20, didn’t fare much better. The ceiling in her bedroom collapsed and she lost most of her clothes, as well as her laptop.

Tristin had been playing an Xbox game with his brothers Kyle, 27, and Brayden, 25, just before the fire broke out yesterday afternoon. “They had come downstairs to watch TV and heard shotgun shells going off in the attic. That’s how they found out there was a fire.” Tristin, who enjoys hunting, got a shotgun as a Christmas present from his dad.

The Kruegers say they are thankful the fire didn’t happen at night when everyone was asleep. Then there might have been injuries. No one was hurt yesterday. Their three sons safely escaped as flames consumed the roof. “That’s the most important thing,” she said.

Still, they are struggling to regroup and figure out what to do. The family is temporarily homeless and being sheltered by various friends. They are hoping their homeowners insurance company will provide a trailer so they can live on their land while their home of 13 years is repaired.

But Raven Kreuger’s main concern, as it has been for the past 13 months, is the health of her youngest child. Tristin was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in December 2013, just before his 17th birthday.

He has undergone chemotherapy treatments at Stony Brook University Hospital, but he and his family pin their hope for his cure on a strict, plant-based mostly raw-foods dietary regimen. He began following the new diet last year and his cancer went into remission. But this summer it returned. He subsequently started a new round of chemo.

“A week ago we were in the hospital with him for treatment,” Raven Krueger said today. “And now…” Her voice trails off as she looks around the house and, like her husband, shakes her head.

“There are specific things we do for him every day,” she continued. She grows wheatgrass, peanut sprouts and sunflower sprouts in flats under lights on basement shelves.

“Basically, what we need most is a place to live.”

Tristin is staying at his best friend’s house for now, Raven Krueger said. Caraline and Brayden, 25, are also staying with friends. Deren, 22, and his wife and child are also with friends until their move to Arizona next week. She, her husband and their eldest son are staying a local hotel.

Surrounded by her four older children today, Raven Krueger stood in the darkened kitchen of her home.

“It will be OK,” she said, as if to reassure herself. “We will be OK.”

“We’ll get through this,” her husband added as he came into the room. He wrapped an arm around his wife of 28 years. “We’ll get through.”

You can assist this family with cash donations through a fundraising page started for Tristin  after his cancer diagnosis. Alternatively, donations may be mailed to the Kruegers at 184 Twomey Avenue, Calverton NY 11933.

Gift cards to Wild by Nature would also be greatly appreciated.

Top photo caption: Caraline Krueger, 20, in her bedroom Sunday. RiverheadLOCAL photos by Denise Civiletti