When disaster struck at Gabriel House on July 13, the Fall River Fire Department requested mutual aid, as it has on other occasions when it has been overwhelmed.

While the assisted living facility filled with smoke and the lives of 70 elderly and disabled people were in peril, those firefighters from Tiverton, Somerset, Swansea, Raynham, Dartmouth, Westport, and Portsmouth, Rhode Island, provided support — at Fall River fire stations.

Firefighter Michael O’Reagan, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1314, said on July 14 that though mutual aid assistance was invaluable, the “scene was Fall River.”

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