College dormitory fires in Dover Delaware and Farmville Virginia.

Includes appendices, photographs

The Longwood College fire, which was apparently caused by an unauthorized overloaded, multi-outlet extension cord, injured 15 students. As in the Wesley College incident, the fire alarm failed to work. In this case, activation was delayed about 10 minutes because the breaker switch was off. In addition, the majority of in-room smoke detectors were disconnected or failed to operate. Similar to those at wesley college, the longwood college students apparently did not evacuate immediately because they thought it was just another fire drill. Both these incidents point up the importance of enforcing fire safety policies and procedures in dormitories and encouraging use of the 911 emergency number for reporting emergencies to appropriate authorities. Gathering information for these reports was somewhat restriced by the criminal and civil investigations at Wesley College and the lack of incident reports and interviews with the fire department in Farmville. Nevertheless, a summary of problems emerged