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U.S.|Speculation Swirls After Deadly Fire at Massachusetts Assisted Living Facility
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/us/fire-gabriel-house-fall-river-massachusetts.html
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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.
July 15, 2025, 8:15 p.m. ET
Across Fall River, Mass., questions lingered on Tuesday about the devastating fire that killed nine residents of an assisted living facility and injured many more over the weekend, in what has become the state’s deadliest blaze in four decades.
Officials released the names of most of the victims, who ranged in age from 61 to 86. At area hospitals, more patients were released. The Bristol County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement late Monday that the fire investigation was ongoing, “but the cause does not appear to be suspicious at this time.”
Some survivors of the fire, and some others familiar with the property, Gabriel House, said that some residents had smoked in their rooms, although smoking indoors was not permitted. And one former employee who worked there for more than a year said she never saw the staff perform fire drills or practice emergency evacuations, despite a population that included many older patients with mobility limitations who used walkers, wheelchairs or scooters to get around.
“No fire drills, no practice, no tests,” said Jenn Marley, a certified nursing assistant who said she worked at Gabriel House in 2018 and 2019, and left the job of her own accord. “All they said when I was hired was, There’s an evacuation plan posted on the wall.”
“Those poor souls who passed away,” she added.
The owner of the assisted living facility, Dennis Etzkorn, did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement provided to The Boston Globe, he pledged to “continue to cooperate with the authorities and provide them with any information they may need throughout the investigative process regarding the cause and origin of this fire.”
The fire at Gabriel House — home to 70 people, many of them disabled or suffering health problems — broke out around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday. As thick smoke filled the building, some residents smashed windows in their rooms and cried out for help. Police and firefighters carried some residents from the building, as nurses from a hospital across the street ran to ferry them to safety in wheelchairs.
