TUSTIN -- Here's something you should know about Chuck Rees.
About 10 years ago, he was calling his wife Laurie from a payphone -- yes, they had payphones back then -- when Laurie heard a skirmish and the phone drop.
Hello? Hello?
It was 10 minutes before she heard her husband's out-of-breath voice: He'd just seen a purse snatcher and given chase.
That's Chuck Rees.
"You hear about people who don't get involved," says Rees, 51, of Tustin, who works as a Costco cashier. "That bothers me. I swore I'd never do that."
So naturally, when he saw black smoke in Buena Park last September, he drove straight to it.
"Don't..." was all Laurie could say before Rees bolted from the car.
She knew he'd run into a burning building to try save someone.
She didn't know he'd run in three times.
From the street, Rees could hear the pop-pop-pop of burning wood. Thick, black smoke curled out the back of the house.
An elderly couple on the sidewalk told him they'd called 9-1-1, but didn't think anyone lived there.
Rees ran to the right side of the house but a gate and barking dog stopped him.
"Is anyone's home?" Rees asked neighbors who were aiming a garden hose over their fence.
"I knocked on the door," the man said, "and there was no answer."
Rees ran to the front door. Pounded. No answer.
He ran to his left, peeled back a chain-link fence and hopped over a cinderblock wall. He stood in the backyard where a second dog met him. The two dogs told Rees this: Someone was home.
Out front, Laurie watched a crowd converge on the street.
"Flames were starting to come out of the roof," she says. "And I knew Chuck was probably trying to get in."
Out back, the outside of the house was on fire, but Rees found what he was looking for: What appeared to be an open door.
"OK, he told himself, "I can get in."
He pulled the metal security door open about six inches before its leash stopped it.
"Hello?" He banged on the door. "Anybody in there?"
At first, nothing. Then a small voice in the darkness answered: "Hello."
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