Providence Collge Dorm Fire, 1977

["What Tha....?"]

Hello, fellow Death Hags. Been a long time since I posted, but this event just popped into my head, yesterday. I remember it from a long time ago. Did not find it on this board, so I thought I'd share it with you.
On December 13, 1977 there was a massive fire on the 4th floor of a women's dorm at Providence College in Rhode Island. 10 girls died, 2 from jumping out the window of their room and 8 from either smoke inhalation, or severe burns. The fire supposedly started because the whole fourth floor of the dorm was decorated with many Christmas decorations, mostly made of crepe paper. A gooseneck lamp left on over a display of Baby Jesus in the manger is what was determined to be the ignition source. The whole fourth floor of the dorm became a raging inferno in a matter of minutes, because of all the combustible paper.
I remembered this event when it first happened, back when I lived in Connecticut. My next door neighbor went to high school with one of the girls who lived in that dorm, but she wasn't on the 4th floor. I remember when I first read the newpaper report of this fire, that it was first thought that this fire started by a hair dryer left on the floor, in the closet of one of the rooms. Anybody else remember this event?

[Jason]

First I'm hearing about it, I would have jumped too and prayed.

[theotherlondon]

Hello, fellow Death Hags. Been a long time since I posted, but this event just popped into my head, yesterday. I remember it from a long time ago. Did not find it on this board, so I thought I'd share it with you.
On December 13, 1977 there was a massive fire on the 4th floor of a women's dorm at Providence College in Rhode Island. 10 girls died, 2 from jumping out the window of their room and 8 from either smoke inhalation, or severe burns. The fire supposedly started because the whole fourth floor of the dorm was decorated with many Christmas decorations, mostly made of crepe paper. A gooseneck lamp left on over a display of Baby Jesus in the manger is what was determined to be the ignition source. The whole fourth floor of the dorm became a raging inferno in a matter of minutes, because of all the combustible paper.
I remembered this event when it first happened, back when I lived in Connecticut. My next door neighbor went to high school with one of the girls who lived in that dorm, but she wasn't on the 4th floor. I remember when I first read the newpaper report of this fire, that it was first thought that this fire started by a hair dryer left on the floor, in the closet of one of the rooms. Anybody else remember this event?

No smoke alarms back then?

[jsnerch]

I'm from RI and I've never heard of this. I wasn't around in '77, though. I'll have to ask my parents about it.

["What Tha....?"]

The dorm did not have smoke alarms. Because it was an older building it was either "Grandfathered" into the new fire codes, or the fire codes we have in place today, did not apply. The floor did have a fire alarm pull station, but it was covered in Christmas decorations. It also had glass enclosed fire extinguishers at the ends of each hallway, but the fire spread too fast, to be of any use. Another problem was that because there were so many false alarms in that dorm for that month, many of the residents thought that when an alarm finally sounded, it was yet another false alarm and ignored it until it was too late.

[Massachusetts]

Oh yes I remember this quite well. It was devastating on many levels.