London Burning
A simple mistake ignited one of the worst fires in world history.
Sometime in the early hours of Sunday, September 2, 1666, a baker named Thomas Farriner went to sleep in London, England, without extinguishing the fires in his oven. In the middle of the night, the oven sparked a flame in the kitchen. Moments later the fire was spreading quickly through his house on Pudding Lane.
All the conditions were right that day for a terrible conflagration. Within this old city, wooden buildings stood close together along narrow, winding, and crowded streets. The summer had been hot and dry, and on September 2, a strong wind was blowing. Fanned by these gusty winds, the fire rapidly consumed one building after another. By midnight it had reached warehouses along the riverfront where highly flammable substances, such as wine, oil, tar, and coal, further fueled its flames.
In the hours and days to follow, the fire engulfed homes, shops, schools, prisons, and entire neighborhoods. It destroyed nearly ninety churches, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of the oldest and grandest buildings in the city. The heat from the fire was so intense that it melted glass, coins, lead—even the thick iron bars of a city prison.
By seven o'clock that first morning, three hundred houses had already burned to the ground. By the time the fire was completely extinguished—4 days later—nearly 80 percent of the city was in ashes.
The Human Toll
As the Great Fire continued to burn, many Londoners, including the king's mother, Henrietta Maria, fled to places outside the city. Those who could afford to move had their possessions taken from their homes and put on barges that floated to safer areas. Some people left London and never returned.
Thousands of people camped around the city's outskirts in tents and flimsy shacks with family members and whatever possessions they had left. A well-known writer named John Evelyn wrote that, in these refugee camps, he saw "poor inhabitants . . . many without a rag or any necessary utensils, bed, or board; who . . . were now reduced to . . . misery and poverty."
Most people did not know what had caused the fire. Citizens roamed the streets looking for arsonists who might have deliberately started the blaze. Foreigners were blamed too. Those from Holland or France found themselves in particular danger because England was at war with those countries. One day, as the Great Fire burned, a mob of angry Londoners prowled the streets, looking for foreigners—and then killing any they found.
It is not known precisely how many people perished in the fire. Information, especially about poor people, was not carefully recorded. But experts agree that thousands lost their homes and belongings. For many of those left homeless, exposure to cold weather soon led to illness and death.
Fighting the Fire
Fire prevention and fire-fighting techniques in the 1600s were not very sophisticated. The city didn't have a fire department so people worked together to put out any fires that sprung up, mostly using buckets of water to douse the flames. The law required the creation of firebreaks, or open spaces between buildings, to prevent fires from spreading easily. But in London, the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, had hesitated to spend the money necessary to enforce this law. And by the time Bloodworth finally ordered that buildings be demolished to make firebreaks—on Sunday, September 2—it was far too late.
King Charles put his brother, James, in charge of fighting the blaze. James organized teams of men who knocked down buildings to try to starve the fire of fuel. The king and his brother also rode around the city on horseback, urging people to pitch in and offering rewards to those who joined in the fight. Later both men were praised for their efforts.
By late Wednesday, September 5, the wind had died down, and many of the firebreaks had stopped the fire from spreading further. The next morning only small fires burned here and there. The Great Fire of London was finally over.
Recovering and Rebuilding
For Londoners, the recovery process was long and difficult. After the fire many people felt traumatized by its devastating effects. A famous writer named Samuel Pepys, who kept a diary during the fire, described his recurring nightmares. Like many others, he was "much terrified in the nights . . . with dreams of fire and falling down of houses."
King Charles continued trying to help the citizens of London after the fire was put out. He ordered that bread be distributed for free. He set up courts to resolve housing disputes that broke out after the fire between tenants and landlords. He also asked for the public's ideas on the best way to rebuild the ruined city.
People had many different ideas about what to do. Finally, after great debate, it was decided that London would be rebuilt according to its former street plan. But unlike the former plan, the new plan was created with fire safety in mind. Many streets were widened and straightened, and new houses were constructed not with wood, but with brick and stone. Planners also made sure that the Thames River—an important water source for fighting fires—remained accessible.
After the Fire
The Great Fire of 1666 was one of the city's worst disasters. The fire burned for four days and four nights, and over thirteen thousand houses and four hundred acres of land were destroyed. Many people were left homeless and penniless, having lost everything in the fire.
But the tragedy also brought some benefits for London, as well as for the rest of the world. London was still recovering from the Great Plague, which had ravaged the city and taken thousands of lives. The fire killed rats that carried the plague, perhaps helping to finally eradicate the disease. In addition, the Great Fire led to the development of more sophisticated fire-fighting techniques. Newer cities were also planned with fire safety in mind. When Englishman William Penn founded the American city of Philadelphia in 1682, he remembered the fire in London. He made sure the streets in his city plan were more open and the houses were not packed together too closely.
In 1668 Christopher Wren, a famous architect, began making plans to rebuild St. Paul’s Cathedral on its original site. By 1677 Wren had also erected a monument to the Great Fire, often just called the Monument. Shaped like a candle with flames at the top, this tall stone column marks the spot where the fire started. Its north side is etched with words that recall the terrible blaze that "devoured even distant buildings and rushed . . . through every quarter with astonishing swiftness and noise."
But the Monument is not just a memorial to history; it has also become a symbol of London's rebirth. Thousands of visitors climb its stairs each year to look out on the city that, once rebuilt, became the center of a powerful empire.