Questions about Gabriel House living conditions and emergency preparedness continue to swirl following Sunday’s deadly fire.

A Massachusetts assisted-living center where nine residents died in a fire was cited for failing to immediately report more than two dozen health and safety incidents.

Elderly residents – some in wheelchairs and some dependent on oxygen tanks – were blinded by deadly smoke as they tried to escape an assisted-living facility in Fall River, Massachusetts, which caught fire Sunday evening.

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.

River Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon deferred all questions about the fire investigation to the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services.

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 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.