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Fall River fire chief: State investigators leading probe; seven residents remain at Tamayo Center
Summary
The Fall River fire chief said the State Fire Marshal's Office and the district attorney's office are handling the investigation into a fatal fire at the Tamayo Center, that seven residents remain displaced there and that the department applied for a SAFER grant to add firefighters.
Fall River's fire chief said state investigators are leading the probe into a fire that killed residents at the Tamayo Center and that seven residents remain at the facility awaiting transfer to other care sites.
The chief told reporters the department is working with the Massachusetts State Fire Marshal's Office and the district attorney's office on the investigation and asked media to contact Jake Wark, public information officer for the Department of Fire Services, for details on cause and origin. "There's not a lot of new information to report," the chief said, adding that the state-level partners "are the most appropriate agency to release that information." The chief provided Wark's email as jake.wark@mass.gov.
The chief said the Tamayo Center had seven residents still on site "today" who were awaiting approval to transfer to other local facilities and that victims remained hospitalized; he said the number of hospitalized victims was "not specified." He said the department had forwarded three years of inspectional reports from the facility to the city's legal department and that public-record requests through inspectional services would start to be released the same day.
The chief described the department's response: 35 Fall River firefighters initially responded to the scene, and the department recalled about 30 additional firefighters, producing a peak of 65 firefighters on scene, he said. "I'm focusing my firefighters on the 50 plus lives that were saved at that incident based on their heroic efforts," he said. He acknowledged that "you can never have enough staff" for an incident of this scale and said adding personnel would improve efficiency, though he would not speculate whether additional staff would have changed outcomes.
On staffing, the chief said the city applied about a month earlier for a SAFER grant to add personnel. The grant application, he said, requested five positions intended to place a fourth firefighter on engine 2 and engine 9. He said he had sought a larger increase earlier and had considered 15 to 20 additional hires a "home run," but that grants must be sustainable after the award ends. "FEMA doesn't wanna give you money to hire 20 firefighters and lay off 30 in 3 years when the grant's done," he said.
The chief said firefighter peer-support teams were deployed at stations the morning after the fire to check on crews, and that peer support would be available when the crew returned to work the day after the meeting. He said the department will conduct an incident analysis beginning the next day to review mutual-aid and station-coverage decisions and to identify changes to response procedures.
When asked about sprinkler performance, evacuation plans and whether staff followed protocol at the Tamayo Center, the chief said those subjects were part of the ongoing investigations and directed questions to the state PIO. He said sprinklers are designed to hold a fire back to allow firefighters to extinguish it but declined to confirm whether sprinklers operated in this incident.
The chief said he planned to provide daily updates as information becomes available and directed media and the public to the city's Facebook page "Fall River government" for vetted donation information and to the mayor's office at 324-2600 for additional questions.
The chief said he had sent the inspectional reports to legal for release and encouraged records requests through inspectional services; he did not specify the exact timing for full release of all records. He also said he did not have a count for how many residents had already been relocated to other assisted-living facilities but said he would obtain and release that number if possible.
The chief repeatedly emphasized the logistical and mental-health impact on firefighters and said the department will continue to offer support. "I encourage all the firefighters on the scene that night to go back to the station and talk about it," he said.
No formal policy changes or city votes were announced at the meeting; the chief said many follow-up items would depend on findings from the state fire marshal's office and the district attorney's office.
