4 killed, including 2 children, in Oshawa house fire

Fire officials say four people — two adults and two children, were killed after a fire ripped through a multiple-unit home in Oshawa.

The fire broke out at around 8:30 a.m. Monday at a three-storey home at Colbourne Street West and Centre Street North.

“It engulfed the whole house within minutes,” a neighbour told CityNews. “(I heard) yelling and screaming of ‘fire’ and ‘my child.’ ”

Fire Chief Derrick Clark said a man and a woman, along with a boy and a girl, died in the fire. It is not known if they were from the same family since there were multiple tenants in the building.

Neighbours told CityNews the woman was Lindsey Bonchek and the children, her two kids Madeline and Jackson. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help cover the costs of their funerals. They identified the fourth victim as Steven McDonald, who they said ran back inside to save people.

Three other people were also taken to hospital.

Clark said the house had been divided into a number of apartments and initial reports indicated there were at least two units in the home. Officials will be looking into whether it was a legal multiple-unit dwelling.

“We don’t have any information yet on cause or a determination of how this fire got going, that will be part of the investigation over the next three or four days,” he said.

“I think the message here is, no matter what dwelling you live in, if you have working smoke alarms that’s the key, and a fire escape plan to get out of your house in time in the event of a fire.”

“At this time we cannot confirm whether there were or were not working smoke alarms, ” he added.

Clark said firefighters faced heavy smoke and fire when they arrived at the scene and had to fight the flames from the outside before attempting to rescue those inside.