THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, February 26, 1996              TAG: 9602260043
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: RADFORD                            LENGTH: Short :   39 lines

RADFORD STUDENT DIES IN FRAT HOUSE FIRE SENIOR, 21, WAS FOUND NEAR THE MOST BURNED AREA.

A fire early Saturday morning at a fraternity house near Radford University killed one student, a school spokesman said.

Thomas Mirch, 21, a senior from Centreville, was pronounced dead at 3:10 a.m. Saturday at Radford Community Hospital, school spokesman Rob Tucker said.

The fire started about 2 a.m. at a house in which students in the Delta Tau Chi fraternity lived, Tucker said. The fraternity is not recognized by the university, Tucker said. Members live in several houses near the school, he said.

Firefighters found Mirch in a bathroom on the upper floor of the two-story brick house, next to his own room.

The bathroom was directly above where the fire appeared to have been worst, in the back of the house. Only the charred remains of a white porch wall still stood below the shattered glass of the bathroom window Saturday afternoon.

At least one other student was inside the house when the fire started and managed to get out.

The cause of the fire was not known Saturday, Radford Fire Marshal Calvin Whitt said.

``The sadness is just magnified by the simple fact of losing two students in such a short period of time,'' Tucker said. A female student died two weeks ago from alcohol poisoning.

KEYWORDS: FIRE FATALITY by CNB