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.

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.

Flames roared through an assisted-living facility in Massachusetts, killing nine people and trapping residents inside, including some who leaned out of windows and screamed for help.