Shirley Chambra was outside smoking a cigarette when she saw sparks and then flames at her home: the Gabriel House assisted-living facility in Fall River, Massachusetts.

At a press conference Tuesday, July 15, outside FRFD headquarters, Bacon said the city has typically relied on overtime for coverage in the event of a crisis -- but in an event like the Gabriel House “you can never have enough staff,” and that he is primarily focused on the lives that were saved.

A Massachusetts native, Willett spent more than 20 years as a secretary and even worked briefly as a cocktail waitress, her granddaughter said. Her home was always a base for everyone in her family, Mallowes said.

Nine people were killed and one was critically injured in an assisted living home fire in Fall River, Massachusetts, authorities said. Fall River Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon called the fire at Gabriel House "an unfathomable tragedy.

You could have had 100 firefighters show up on that scene and it wouldn’t have been enough,” Jeffrey Bacon said at a news briefing outside the fire department’s headquarters Tuesday.

A Sunday night fire at an assisted living facility in Fall River that took the lives of nine residents has left the dozens of the home’s surviving residents in need of basic essentials.

A deadly fire broke out at Gabriel House, an assisted living facility located about 50 miles south of Boston in Fall River, Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts assisted-living facility that caught fire Sunday evening was slated to undergo a recertification and compliance review process later this year.

A deadly fire tore through an assisted living facility in Fall River, Massachusetts, on Sunday night, July 13. The Fall River Fire Department said the fire caused multiple injuries and fatalities at the Gabriel House home on Oliver Street, ABC6 reported.