The Massachusetts assisted-living facility where a fatal fire killed nine people was caring for dozens of aging residents reliant on wheelchairs and oxygen tanks, but it lacked the safety measures and most of the staffing requirements that are commonplace in nursing homes.

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.

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

A blaze at a Massachusetts assisted-living home Sunday killed a musician, a secretary, a veteran Army sharpshooter and six other people. Some in her family say Gabriel House wasn’t

The Gabriel House assisted living facility did not perform fire drills or train workers in evacuation procedures and was also understaffed and poorly maintained, according to a current and former employee interviewed in the aftermath of the fatal fire there that killed nine residents.

Residents of the Gabriel House in Fall River, Massachusetts described the terrifying moments that smoke filled the assisted living home​ and they had to find a way to escape.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey praised first responders in Fall River for their “heroic” work in preventing an “unimaginable loss of life” in a fire at an assisted living facility on Sunday night.