On Sunday an intense grease fire broke out at the Cerwinski home in Joliet that gutted the first and second floors.
No one was home at the time except for the family dog: a two-year-old boxer named Bella.
Plainfield Central seniors Bobby Boekeloo and Ben Wielgos were going door-to-door raising money for their baseball team when they came upon the house.
“When we started walking up to the front door it started smelling like fireworks,” Ben told NBC 5.
The pair saw smoke coming from the windows.
"I kept hearing the noise of the smoke detectors," Bobby said.
Bobby ran to the back of the home while Ben called 911.
Local
“I heard the whimpering of the dog," Bobby said. "I went to open the door and it was unlocked luckily."
“You could tell it was scared," he added. "It was shaking and it wasn’t barking at all."
Firefighters were there within minutes and though the house sustained major damage -it could have been much worse.
Bella is alive thanks to Ben and Bobby’s quick action, Kayle Czerwinski said.
“That’s really nice that they did that," Czerwinski said. "They didn’t have to do that but they stood out of their way to do that."
Rob Czerwinski was grateful too.
“It’s just refreshing to see that two kids went above and beyond and did the right thing," he said. "They truly are heroes."
But the high school baseball players will settle for good Samaritans.
"It’s just kind of weird to think of us as heroes," Ben said. "We’re just anybody else."
Bobby said he and Ben were common people in an uncommon setting.
"I feel like anybody in that situation should have done the same thing,” he said.
