By Andy Rose, Zoe Sottile

(CNN) — Nine people died Sunday night after an assisted living facility caught fire in Fall River, Massachusetts, officials said. Elderly residents begged for help from first responders as smoke poured out of the building and blackened the hallways they tried to use for their escape.

“There were multiple victims hanging out the windows, screaming and begging for help and to be rescued,” Fire Chief Jeffrey Bacon told reporters outside the facility.

“I thought I was dead,” said resident Loraine Ferrara, who was pulled out of her bathroom window. “I thought I was going to meet my maker.”

It was impossible to get to the exit door through the blinding smoke, Ferrara told CNN affiliate WCVB. “I’d never seen anything like it in my life. I couldn’t breathe,” she told the station.

About 30 people were taken by ambulance to nearby hospitals, Bacon said.

Bristol County District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn, III said seven of the victims had been identified as: 64-year-old Rui Albernaz; 61-year-old Ronald Codega; 69-year-old Margaret Duddy; 78-year-old Robert King; 71-year-old Kim Mackin; 78-year-old Richard Rochon; and 86-year-old Eleanor Willett.

Two other victims — a 70-year-old woman and a 77-year-old man — have not been named yet, pending notifying their next of kin.

An investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing but “the cause does not appear to be suspicious at this time,” the district attorney said in a Monday afternoon news release.

Around 30 residents, including one in critical condition, were transported to local hospitals for treatment, according to the district attorney.

The nearest hospital, Saint Anne’s, is less than a block from Gabriel House. The facility treated 15 people overnight, spokesperson Kelly Brennan told CNN. Two were transferred to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence for Level One trauma care. Four were released and nine remained hospitalized in stable condition.

Charlton Memorial Hospital in nearby New Bedford received 28 patients, with eight still under their care Monday afternoon, spokesperson Kaitlyn Johnson told CNN.

The fire chief said five firefighters were taken from the scene with “mostly minor injuries” and have since been released.

More than 50 firefighters – including 30 who were off duty – joined the rescue effort after an automatic alarm system triggered the emergency call, Bacon said, adding, “Every police officer in the city was here, too, and everybody was rescuing people.”

“A lot of these people needed assistance just getting out of the building, and a five-star effort got as many people out as we could,” Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan said.

“I went to my room door, I opened it, and all the smoke from the hall went right in my face. All that I could do was just stand there and choke,” resident Al Almanza told CNN affiliate WCVB. “I thought it was going to be the end of everything.”

Almanza, who said both of his daughters have died within the past year, was unable even to see the hand of the police officer who guided him to safety due to the smoke. “My whole family’s gone, and I’m alone,” he said, choking back tears.

A woman was speaking on the phone to her father – a resident trapped at Gabriel House – while he was trying to find a way out, she said to WCVB.

“He was on the floor talking to me, and I am crying, telling him, ‘Break the window. Try to break it,’ because he is so weak, and he couldn’t break it.”

She told WCVB she was able to direct firefighters to her father’s location so he could be rescued.

Cleanup crews were seen Monday boarding up windows and removing boxes from the building. Bacon said those boxes were filled with residents’ medications which were contaminated by smoke and will be discarded.

Gabriel House has been in operation since 1999, according to the state Department of Health & Social Services. About 70 residents were living in the three-story building at the time of the fire, the Department of Fire Services said.

The Massachusetts State Police is assisting in the investigation into the cause of the fire. CNN reached out to the facility’s owner, Dennis Etzkorn, Monday. The Associated Press reported that Etzkorn was seen speaking to fire officials at the scene of the blaze Monday morning a declined to comment to a reporter.

Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan described the blaze as “a tremendous tragedy” in a Monday interview with CNN.

Massachusetts State Police were on site overnight, he said, adding he was waiting for an official report on the cause of the disaster.

“It’s a tragedy, no matter how it happened or what started it, but at the same time, we want to get to the bottom of this,” Coogan said.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy visited the scene Monday morning.

“All of these people needed assistance,” Healey said at a news conference. “As you saw, many were in wheelchairs. Many were immobile. Many had oxygen tanks. They were severely compromised.”

The Gabriel House website says it has 24-hour staffing. Assisted living facilities in Massachusetts “must always have sufficient staff to handle emergencies and meet resident needs as required by resident service plans,” according to the Executive Office of Aging & Independence.

The fire chief said he’s convinced the quick work of first responders saved lives.

“I applaud the efforts of them, but my heart goes out to the families of those who were injured and especially of the nine who lost their lives,” Bacon said. “This is an unfathomable tragedy for the families involved and the Fall River community,” Bacon said in an earlier, written statement.

The fire chief has declined to speak about the possible cause of the blaze.

“We’re very early on in the investigation,” Bacon said. “One of the most dangerous things we can do is speculate.”

‘Everyone overwhelmed’

Michael O’Regan, president of the Fall River firefighters’ union, was one of the off-duty firefighters who arrived to help battle the blaze.

“When I got here, what I saw was everyone overwhelmed,” he said at a Monday news conference. Firefighters were “split between rescuing those that they could see, and searching for those they couldn’t see, and then there were crews that were actively engaged in fire suppression.”

It took “a significant amount of time” to extricate each resident from the building, he said. Many were unconscious or unable to walk. Firefighters broke through windows at the facility and used ladders to access the building. In some cases, they had to push air conditioner units out of windows to get residents out.

O’Regan and several other off-duty firefighters didn’t have breathing equipment to help them deal with the heavy smoke, he said. “I didn’t have time to go get the stuff, and we didn’t have any extra stuff, so we did what we had to do,” he said.

His brother, fellow firefighter Frank O’Regan, arrived around 40 minutes into the incident and found that some residents were still trapped on the third floor, he said.

“I couldn’t believe that after all this time, there was still a full area with people trapped,” he said. “It was awful.”

It was one of the events with the “worst loss of life” he’s seen in his career, he said.

Firefighters’ union raises alarm at understaffing

Speaking at a news conference after the blaze, Edward Kelly, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, drew attention to what he characterized as understaffing of the Fall River Fire Department.

The national standard calls for four firefighters per company, Kelly said. But only two of Fall River’s 10 companies meet that standard, he said. The other eight companies are operating with three firefighters each.

“Last night, had they been staffed properly, up to national standards, there would have been eight more firefighters affecting rescues here last night,” Kelly said. “There’s no doubt that would have made a difference in the amount of people that we lost to this terrible fire last night, lives would have been saved.”

Fire Chief Bacon confirmed that staffing was “a fight we’ve been having in this city for generations.”

“We’d love to have four on every apparatus,” he told CNN.

Fall River hasn’t had four firefighters per apparatus since the 1980s or 90s, according to Bacon, who said it’s “always the goal to get back to that number.”

“Every chief at one point or another has had that conversation with the city administration through the years,” he said.

At the peak of the response, there were around 65 firefighters at the scene, Bacon said.

Coogan, the mayor, told CNN he allocated firefighters to the department based on recommendations from the chief. The department has 140 firefighters in total, he said.

Michael O’Regan said, “We did the best we could with what we had – and what we had was not enough.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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