The Massachusetts assisted-living facility where a fatal fire killed nine people was caring for dozens of aging residents reliant on wheelchairs and oxygen tanks, but it lacked the safety measures and most of the staffing requirements that are commonplace in nursing homes.

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.

You could have had 100 firefighters show up on that scene and it wouldn’t have been enough,” the fire chief said at a news briefing outside the fire department’s headquarters Tuesday.