By Charlie McKenna, Luis Fieldman
masslive.com
FALL RIVER, Mass. — It took six minutes from the time a box alarm went off inside the Gabriel House assisted living facility in Fall River for firefighters to arrive at the scene and begin rescuing residents, according to newly obtained documents.
The fire killed 10 people and injured at least 30 in what is believed to be the deadliest residential fire in Massachusetts in decades. Accounts from a July 13 police log, radio transmissions and witness accounts provide the most detailed look to date of the intense firefighting operation at the assisted living facility.
Here’s how the night played out:
9:38 p.m. - Box alarm goes off
The police log shows the alarm system inside Gabriel House, which housed 70 residents, went off at 9:38 p.m. Sunday, and a department dispatcher sent three fire engines, a ladder truck, a rescue truck and a car to the scene a minute later, at 9:39.
At 9:40 p.m., police received a 911 call from a person screaming about a fire at Gabriel House, and reporting that alarms were sounding.
By 9:42 p.m., first responders were on their way. As dispatchers continued to field multiple 911 calls, one noted a “possible [air conditioner] fire” at Gabriel House.
Gabriel House resident Alvaro Vieira, 64, was alerted to the fire when he started seeing “just a little bit” of smoke coming under his door.
He lived near the room where the fire started, and had been sitting in his recliner chair watching TV without his hearing aids that night.
He got up and opened his door and was hit by a cloud of smoke. He saw the sprinklers going off, Chris Vieira, 33, of New Bedford, recalled his father saying. Alvaro Vieira quickly shut the door.
He then made his way across the room to a window. But because he was previously partially paralyzed from a stroke, he couldn’t escape by himself.
In another room, Steven Oldrid knew there was a fire and followed the instructions posted on the back of his studio apartment door.
“Close it and stay in your room,” his attorney, Robin Gouveia, paraphrased.
Smoke also began pouring into Lorraine Ferrera’s room from the hallway. She feared for her life and retreated to the bathroom — “and that was full of smoke now, too,” she said.
Alvaro Vieira, Ferrera and other residents, also trapped, began yelling out their windows. Oldrid, however, had lost consciousness.
9:44 p.m. - First fire engine arrives at the scene
As the fire raged, police officers could be seen walking into what appeared to be the front entrance of the facility at around 9:44 p.m. Sunday. About 2 minutes later, a dispatcher can be heard on radio transmissions sending first responders to the scene. The fire alarm can be heard blaring in each of the body camera videos, as officers hurry residents out of the building.
“We need you out, there’s a huge fire,” one officer says. “Big fire.”
Another first responder can be heard in radio transmissions calling for more help.
“Bring ladders, all units,” the first responder radioed, according to transmissions posted to broadcastify.com around 9:44 p.m. “It’s completely up in flames.”
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Engine 5 was the first fire truck to arrive at Gabriel House on Oliver Street, Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon said last week, an assertion backed up by the log.
The National Fire Protection Association outlines a 5-minute 20-second response time from the time firefighters are dispatched to the scene to when they arrive, including 80 seconds for turnout and 4 minutes to arrive on scene.
In the case of Gabriel House, a dispatcher sent firefighters to the scene at 9:39:10 p.m. Engine 5 arrived at 9:44:47 p.m., according to the log, meaning firefighters exceeded the standard response time by 17 seconds.
However, Bacon, the fire chief, said companies arrived within a minute of being alerted to the fire. There’s a “natural delay” in dispatch, he explained.
What they pulled up to was an eerie silence, according to Bacon.
“Flames were blowing out the front door,” Bacon said.
The captain advanced two hose lines with a crew of just three people — typically, two firefighters are assigned to each hose. But the captain “recognized the danger in that building and the risks that were posed by the residents,” Bacon said.
“Countless lives were saved by those actions,” he said.
The trucks that pulled up — “mere seconds after Engine 5 [was] advancing that hose line” — arrived at what Bacon called a “chaotic scene,” his voice faltering.
Firefighters saw faces in windows, including Alvaro Vieira’s, and had to decide how to save them.
By 9:45 p.m., at least one firefighter carrying an axe had entered the building and started going door to door with police officers.
9:45 p.m. — Rescues
First responders broke down doors to warn residents of the impending danger. Officers used flashlights and explosive door knocks as they made their way through the facility.
At one point, officers are seen outside coughing and keeled over, seemingly choking on the heavy smoke that filled the building. At another, two officers jump through an open window into the building.
Despite first responders having already arrived, Cleber Parra and his friends could hear people screaming for help.
Seven people, including Parra and Jonnathan Gomez, grabbed two ladders from the top of a nearby van, tore down a metal fence blocking their way, and placed the ladders below two third-floor bathroom windows.
“When I looked inside [the window], I saw a man,” Parra said. “He was clearly panicking. When I saw his face, I saw fear, so I got desperate. I wanted to break the window.”
With his bare hands, Parra shattered the bottom window. The glass cut both his forearms. Almost a week later, the wounds were still visible.
A firefighter approached Parra’s group and told Parra to come down so he could break the rest of the window, Parra said. The firefighter broke the glass and climbed into the building.
“He went in headfirst and told me he was going to send the resident out feet first,” Parra said. “We grabbed the man and got him down.”
At an adjacent window, Gomez had ascended a second ladder to the third floor.
The room was full of smoke, and Gomez said he could barely see inside. His eyes fell on a man sitting against the door, where the floor was covered in water from the sprinklers above. Gomez climbed through the window.
The man appeared to have given up, Gomez said in Spanish.
“I said to him, ‘Hey my friend!’ because I don’t know much English,” he said. “When he saw me, his face lit up, and from there I picked him up.”
Gomez carried the man down the ladder to safety with help from his friends.
Firefighters at the scene informed a dispatcher that they needed a recall, which prompted numerous off-duty firefighters from across the city to come to the scene and assist in rescue efforts.
“We need a fresh crew,” a firefighter said, adding there were still people trapped on one side of the building who needed to be rescued.
At 9:57 p.m., two police officers can be seen standing outside a window, asking if the person inside can hear them. One of the police officers begins yelling for firefighters.
“[expletive] it,” the officer said a minute later, as another officer jumped through the window into the building.
The radio transmissions grew more urgent as the rescue effort unfolded. In many, shouting and screaming can be heard in the background.
“I’ve got a victim inside, severely burnt, I need help,” a firefighter said.
Police were still working with firefighters to rescue residents more than 40 minutes after they arrived at the scene, often physically carrying residents and helping them down flights of stairs.
Two people removed Alvaro Vieira and put him on a stretcher before quickly going back to save more people.
“I need a paramedic and a stretcher to the rear of the building immediately,” a first responder radioed after 10 p.m.
When a firefighter appeared at Ferrara’s window, she didn’t think she’d have the mobility to get down.
“I told him I couldn’t get out. I was going to say, ‘just leave me.’ But he broke the window and got me out,” she said. The 72-year-old blacked out on the way down, she said, and when she opened her eyes, she was on the ground across the street.
Judith Croteau, 82, was also in her bathroom when a firefighter broke through the window to save her. She walked down the ladder herself with a firefighter holding her waist, and she credited her life to him.
“I wish I knew who he was,” she said.
In all, 11 police officers and two sergeants responded to the fire, equipped with flashlights, explosive door-kicks and “exceptional courage,” the department said in a statement. And about 65 firefighters, including many who were off-duty, responded to the scene, officials said.
Four dispatchers were inundated with calls about the fire, sending firefighters and rescue vehicles to the scene and coordinating with other towns for backup.
At one point, there were 12 ambulances from a half dozen area fire departments at a staging area near the fire.
Around 10:20 p.m., Fall River Captain Frank O’Reagan was able to start searching and ventilating the third floor. He found three victims and helped rescue a fourth, according to the Fall River Fire Fighters Union.
10:37 p.m. - Fire knocked down
Almost an hour after the box alarm went off, firefighters reported to dispatch that the fire had been knocked down.
“Multiple victims have been removed from the building. This is a mass casualty incident,” a firefighter radioed. “Expect crews to be committed for a significant portion of the night.”
Residents who were evacuated from the building and didn’t need to go to a hospital were taken to Timao Center, a temporary shelter in Fall River .
At 11:35 p.m., some people were still being taken to St. Anne’s Hospital.
In total, the fire killed 10 people.
- Rui Albernaz, 64
- Ronald Codega, 61
- Margaret Duddy, 69
- Robert King, 78
- Kim Mackin, 71
- Richard Rochon, 78
- Eleanor Willett, 86
- Joseph Wilansky, 77
- Brenda Cropper, 66
- Halina Lawler, 70
Following days
Within days of the fire, Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan said the city intended to increase the number of fully staffed fire engines to the national standard of four firefighters per truck.
The department typically staffs just two of its ten fire engines to that standard, but Coogan said the agreement will increase the number to six.
The announcement came after a years-long strife between the city and the union representing its firefighters. International Association of Firefighters President Ed Kelly said July 14 that had Fall River been staffed to the national standard, more lives would have been saved.
The increased staffing means Fall River will hire 15 to 20 firefighters over the next two years, Bacon said at the press conference. In the short term, while those firefighters are hired and trained, the new staffing level will be covered by overtime.
With the new agreement, a minimum of 38 firefighters will work each shift, Bacon said. Gov. Maura Healey announced the state intends to provide Fall River a grant worth $1.2 million to cover the staffing levels. On July 13, that would have meant three more firefighters would have been able to respond to the scene when the fire broke out, throwing up ladders and rescuing trapped residents.
“We think this is a very positive step in the right direction,” Coogan said.
The investigation determined the fire was started in a second-floor room of a resident and was caused by either an electrical or mechanical failure of an oxygen concentrator in the resident’s room or the improper use or disposal of smoking materials. Since investigators could not pinpoint one specific cause, it will remain undetermined, State Fire Marshal Jon M. Davine said July 22 .
It is clear, though, that the presence of medical oxygen inside the assisted living facility contributed to the severity of the fire.
“There’s truly no safe way to smoke, but smoking is especially dangerous when home oxygen is in use,” Davine said. “No one should smoke around medical oxygen.”
The state’s Assisted Living Residences Commission has also begun discussions about the importance of diving deeper into the evolving medical needs of assisted living residents, as well as the “affordable” model — versus private-pay — that some claim contributed to poor conditions at Gabriel House before the fire.
“We can’t ignore what happened in Fall River,” she said.
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