A late Sunday morning fire has left a Rincon family homeless, and only a few days after the father of the family returned to his job as a civilian contractor in Iraq.

Rincon Fire Department units battled the fire twice, once after hot spots flared in the afternoon, at a home on Plantation Drive Sunday afternoon.

Kathy Strickland, who lives next door, thought at first she smelled the smoke of someone burning off yard waste. With the garage full of items from her daughter’s wedding the night before, she asked her husband to close the garage door to keep the smell of smoke out.

Her husband David went out and the smell of the smoke wasn’t the same as that given off by burning leaves, she said. That’s when he saw the smoke pouring out of the Priesters’ two-story home, and the flames already engulfing the structure. Kathy Strickland then called 911.

“Five children live in that house,” she said, noting all she could think of was whether they were still in there. “I thought there were children sleeping (in the house).”

Meanwhile, her husband tried to see who might still be inside.

“He was going around, beating on the house, asking if any was in there,” Kathy Strickland said.

She added her husband works at Imperial Sugar in Port Wentworth and employees are undergoing extensive fire training.

The family had just gotten to the Rincon Church of God when they were told their house was on fire, Kathy said. She too would have been at church at that moment if not for her daughter’s wedding the night before.

Kathy Strickland said one son in the family works at Kroger’s and he was called to find out if anybody was in the house. The father had just left Wednesday to return to Iraq for his job as a civilian contractor after a short trip home, she said.

The youth pastor of Rincon Church of God eventually took the Priester children to Acts III for clothes, Strickland said, and the Red Cross is putting the family up at the Microtel for two nights.