Five days before a fatal blaze ripped through Gabriel House , a fire safety contractor alerted the building owner his sprinkler system had not undergone the state-mandated five-year inspection, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The revelation is a critical piece of the state’s ongoing probe. On the night of July 13, in the second-floor unit where the fire started , the sprinkler didn’t go off, sources told MassLive.

Ten residents of the Fall River assisted living facility were killed, the highest death toll in a Massachusetts fire in more than 40 years.

The building’s sprinkler system had an annual inspection tag, meaning it had been visually inspected this year as required. However, there wasn’t a five-year inspection tag indicating an intensive physical inspect

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