A former employee said she never saw the staff perform fire drills. The local fire chief pushed back at claims that dispatching more firefighters would’ve saved more lives.

Top Massachusetts officials are suggesting the state consider new ways to regulate and finance so-called affordable assisted living homes after the deadly fire Sunday night at the facility for seniors in Fall River that relies heavily on public funding.

The state Executive Office of Elder Affairs cited the facility for seven deficiencies, four of which were repeat problems.

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 fire at Gabriel House assisted living in Fall River, Massachusetts, resulted in multiple deaths and injuries. City is responding and investigating.

An "extensive investigation" is underway in Fall River after a fire at an assisted living center claimed the lives of nine people.

The investigation into the fire’s cause is ongoing but “does not appear to be suspicious,” according to the Bristol County district attorney's office.

The names of seven of the nine people who died in the Fall River fire on July 13 have been released to the public.