Investigators think concentrated oxygen, smoking materials may have caused fatal Fall River fire

Investigators believe the fatal fire at the Fall River assisted living facility started in a resident's room on the second floor from either a failed oxygen concentrator or smoking materials.

The state's fire marshal Jon Davine said there is no evidence the fire was intentionally set.

On Tuesday afternoon, Davine addressed the press with investigators' initial findings into the fatal blaze that took the lives of 10 people and injured more than 30 at the Gabriel House assisted living facility on July 13.

"The loss of life, the centuries of family history and memories that were taken, the fear and the heartache — we cannot begin to measure the depths," Davine said. "Nothing will undo what happened to Gabriel House, but we can do everything in our power to understand it and prevent it from ever happening again."

The resident of the room where it started was among the fire's victims, he said.

Unlike traditional tanks, concentrators separate the oxygen from the air before delivering it to the patient. Davine said the flammable gas played a significant role in the fire's rapid spread throughout the facility.

"No one should smoke around medical oxygen," he said.

Bristol County district attorney Thomas M. Quinn III said the investigation is ongoing, as are efforts to help those affected by the fire.

"We're putting a lot of resources into this," he said. "There's a lot of trauma that's gone on here."

Quinn did not answer a reporter who asked if he ruled out the possibility of future criminal charges in connection to the fire.

Earlier on Tuesday, Gov. Maura Healey said the state would provide $1 million to improve public safety staffing for the city.

Fire union officials have argued more people could have been saved had the Fall River fire department been better resourced.

Only two of the city's 10 fire companies were staffed at the national standard of four firefighters per truck at the time of the Gabriel House fire.

The city has since announced it will hire up to 20 more firefighters and offer more overtime to increase the number of people working each shift.

But Healey pushed back on the notion that the money was an acknowledgment that understaffing led to a higher death toll.

"Absolutely not," Healey said. "What I'm doing underscoring what has always been my commitment to first responders, to public safety."

With reporting by WBUR's Amy Gorel and Walter Wuthmann.