Joshua Detlef was delivering mail on a blustery day last year in a Depew, NY, neighborhood when he saw smoke billowing up from a nearby block.
Detlef rushed to the scene and saw that a customer’s garage was on fire.
A neighbor was calling 911 and stood near the home’s front door, yelling to alert anyone inside.
But Detlef instantly recognized a problem: He knew that the family didn’t use the front entrance.
He raced to the side door they relied on, opened it and made sure the homeowner, her two young sons, her mother and the family’s two dogs safely got out of the house.
Firefighters soon arrived to battle the blaze.
Fanned by high winds, it destroyed the home and damaged multiple neighboring structures.