A 50-year-old father who died in a devastating fire while rescuing his pregnant daughter from the burning Oshawa home is being remembered as a “heartfelt” person who would “give you the shirt off his back.”

Steven MacDonald was inside the two-unit home on Centre Street North along with his daughter, ex-wife and girlfriend when a fire suddenly broke out, reportedly trapping the tenants living in the upper unit.

Brandon Desroches, the fiancée of pregnant Alysha MacDonald, also lives in the home but was at work nearly two hours away when the fire broke out. He spoke to CTV News Toronto on behalf of Alysha, who was too distraught over her father’s death to comment.

“She said she had heard a bang and went upstairs and there was fire everywhere,” Desroches said. “I believe one of the windows had burst because she said the whole kitchen was (in flames) at that time.”

Desroches said MacDonald quickly came to his daughter’s rescue and helped her escape.

“She was having trouble coming up the stairs and Steve helped her up,” he said. “Then he carried her out the door over the flames.”

MacDonald went back into the fiery building two more times to rescue his ex-wife and girlfriend. Desroches said he ventured back in a third time to “get to the people upstairs,” but never returned.

“He was a very heartfelt man,” Desroches said, choking back tears. “Everything he did was from kindness. He would help out anyone with anything in any way he could… The type of guy that would give you the shirt off his back.”

Oshawa Fire Chief Derrick Clark said firefighters were met with heavy smoke and flames billowing from the two-storey unit when they arrived. While inside, Clark said they were surrounded by flames “at all times” and had difficulty accessing the upper level.

“We had severe fire conditions that worsened and we evacuated all personnel from the building, made a defensive attack, and then regrouped and went back in for search and rescue,” Clark said.

Four victims – a man, a woman, a boy and a girl – were later pronounced dead. Firefighters were able to pull one of the children from the home but they did upon arrival at the hospital.

Clark said two of the remaining victims were found on the second storey of the home and third on the main floor.

While the victims haven’t formally been identified by authorities, friends say Lindsey Bonchek and her two children, four-year-old Jaxon and nine-year-old Maddie, died in the fire.

The victim’s third child, a 16-year-old boy with developmental disabilities, was sitting on the front porch waiting for his school bus when the fire broke out. A close family friend, who did not want to be named, said the boy and others tenants who escaped the home boarded the bus once it arrived to keep warm until emergency services arrived.

Steven MacDonald was later identified by friends and family as the fourth victim.

“My dad’s been a hero since the day I was born,” Steven’s other daughter, Meaghan MacDonald, said through tears on Tuesday.

“He’s done everything from putting me through school to making sure I was safe from day one. He’s always been there if I needed to call him because I was having a bad day. He never let me down, ever.”

Meaghan said she was in Hamilton when the fire broke out but had been visiting the house the night before.

“He rescued my baby sister,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without her as well.”

Fire investigators with the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office combed through the charred remains on Tuesday.

Ontario Fire Marshal investigator Rick Derstroff said the damage to the home is extensive and, along with wet weather conditions, has hampered their investigation efforts. They’re expected to remain at the home investigating well into next week.

“We’ll be looking at the building performance to see if was up to fire code and make sure the fire and smoke didn’t spread more than it should’ve,” Derstroff said.

“We can also test the batteries to see if they had enough power in them to actually work the smoke alarm, if they were dead or not.”

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

Desroches said he believes there were smoke detectors installed in the home.

“She (Alysha) said she wasn’t sure if they were going off while they were all in a panic and the windows bursting,” Desroches said. “I know myself that there were working fire alarms in the residence, whether they went off at the time, I’m not entirely sure.”

Desroches went on to question whether the home was properly maintained by the landlord.

An estimated 11 people lived in the multi-unit home.

“That house needed a lot of work. There were a lot of shoddy renovations done by whoever was contracted by the landlord at the time,” he said. “The house should’ve been, I think, thoroughly investigated beforehand and put up to code.”

An online fundraising effort set up for the Bonchek family has raised more than $6,000 at the time this story was published.

The GoFundMe page said the money will go towards a trust in the surviving son’s name to “provide the support and assistance he needs. A second, separate GoFundMe page is raising money for funeral costs for the family.

Desroches said his fiancée and their family are all “trying to stay strong the best they can.”

“They’re at a loss for words,” he said.

“It was a horrible way but he did right by them… he got them out and saved every single one of them, including my unborn child. That’s something you can’t pay back.”