FALL RIVER – When flames cut through two city houses last week and sent victims out of their pandemic safe zones, American Red Cross volunteers responded to the crisis.

Masked, trained and maintaining social distance, they offered their brand of comfort and guidance.

“Our services haven’t changed,” said Edward Blanchard, Red Cross program manager for Bristol, Plymouth and Barnstable counties, and the Cape and Islands.

Disaster, after all, is their business.

The American Red Cross of Massachusetts serves 6.6 million residents in 351 cities and towns. It responds to hundreds of fires each year.

Some 300 volunteers are at the ready in Blanchard’s program area.

“Knock on wood, we haven’t had an impact to our workforce,” Blanchard said.

Victims of disaster, including house fires, are offered food, clothing, and shelter at local hotels. They are offered help in filling prescriptions, finding medical and mental health care, and are given referrals for other needed services. Food and drinks are provided to emergency responders, including police officers and firefighters.

Blanchard said he worried when the pandemic first struck that hotels and motels would no longer house victims with nowhere else to go.

“We were afraid they would be shut down,” Blanchard said.

That hasn’t been the case.

He said victims of the two Fall River fires last week – a two-family house on Quequechan Street and a one-family on Stafford Road – went to the homes of family members.

He said the Red Cross follows up with victims to see how they are doing, usually in person, but now with a phone call to maintain social distancing.

“Our services are still there,” Blanchard said.

He said he wants to make sure people realize that the Red Cross is still functioning. “We want to make sure people call us.”

Besides disaster services, the Red Cross offers international humanitarian services, blood donation, lifesaving skills, nurse assistant training, and food and nutrition programs like SNAP outreach, help for seniors, and food pantries like the Boston Food Pantry and New Bedford mobile distribution site at the YMCA.

The Red Cross has a goal through its Massachusetts Home Fire Campaign to reduce the number of injuries and deaths from fires by 25 percent in 2020 by providing free smoke detectors to households in need. It has already installed some 12,600 smoke alarms in Massachusetts.

To learn more about the Red Cross or to become a volunteer or donate blood, call 1-800-564-1234 or visit the American Red Cross of Massachusetts at https://www.redcross.org/local/massachusetts.html