At the time of the great fire, London had also just gone through summertime which caused a severe drought in the city. The shortage in water supply and the proximity of the buildings to one another were the main contributing factors to the spread of the fire which lasted for under five days and destroyed the majority of the city. The Fire
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On 2 September 1666, an event started that would change the face of London. The Great Fire broke out from a baker's house in Pudding Lane. By the time it was over four days later, much of the medieval city lay in smoking ruins. These objects from our collections tell the story of the Great Fire.
The fire spread quickly because the buildings were made of wood. The buildings were built very close together. It had also been a long, hot summer and the wooden buildings were very dry. The wind was strong.
French watchmaker Robert Hubert confessed to starting the blaze and was hanged on October 27, 1666. Years later it was revealed he was at sea when the fire began, and could not have been responsible. There were other scapegoats, including people of Catholic faith and from overseas.
What happened after the fire? London had to be almost totally reconstructed. Temporary buildings were erected that were ill-equipped, disease spread easily, and many people died from this and the harsh winter that followed the fire. As well as loss of life, the financial costs were staggering.
What caused the Great Fire of London? At 1 a.m. on 2nd September, the fire began in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane. Historians think that a spark from his oven may have fallen onto wood for fuel nearby and caught fire.
The Great Fire of London happened between 2-5 September in 1666. The fire began in a bakery in Pudding Lane. Before the fire began, there had been a drought in London that lasted for 10 months, so the city was very dry. In 1666, lots of people had houses made from wood and straw which burned easily.
A baker by the name of Thomas Farriner was blamed for the blaze - something he denied for the rest of his life. The small blaze spread between September 2 and 5 1666, leaving 436 acres of the city completely destroyed.
Great Fire of London, (September 2–5, 1666), the worst fire in London's history. It destroyed a large part of the City of London, including most of the civic buildings, old St. Paul's Cathedral, 87 parish churches, and about 13,000 houses.
September 2, 1666 – September 6, 1666Great Fire of London / Period
The rumors spread faster than the blaze that engulfed London over five days in September 1666: that the fire raging through the city's dense heart was no accident – it was deliberate arson, an act of terror, the start of a battle. England was at war with both the Dutch and the French, after all.
There were other serious fires in London in 1130 and 1132. Further major fires of London are noted in 13th century London in the years 1220, 1227, and 1299, but none that had the impact of the Great Fire of 1212.
At that time, London housed over three hundred and fifty thousand (350,000) people. The city was going through a dry season and most of the wooden buildings had dried out making them fire-friendly. The fire died down on the 6th of September 1666. It is known that a fifth of the city of London survived the inferno.
The great fire of London was a terrible tragedy that destroyed a lot of homes and properties in the city of London. This occurred at a time when London was suffering from terrible droughts. The prolonged absence of rains brought a lot of danger to the city’s inhabitants. However, the fire that befell the city on September 2, 1666 was the most terrible of all the dangers. It took several firefighters, working for days, to bring the fire under control.
Fighting the fire became such a huge challenge because people seemed more interested in escaping than trying to quench the fire as observed and recorded in a diary by Samuel Pepys who was the Royal Navy’s clerk.
Consequences of the Great Fire of London. Despite the fact that only six people were recorded dead, it is said that many deaths were not entered in the records. People died by getting burnt, some died from inhaling the smoke and others from starvation. It is said that the fire was between 2300 and 2700 degrees Fahrenheit.
If the fire had crossed the bridge, it would have affected the borough of Southwark. The buildings on the bridge were unlike the ones in the city. The ones in the city were close-knit. The buildings along the bridge had spaces in between them so these were used as fire breaks.
Challenges of the Inferno. The London Bridge, which connected the city to the South of the Thames River, was the most-used connection seen or known to the city. This put those who resided on the bridge in a lot of danger. If the fire had crossed the bridge, it would have affected the borough of Southwark.
It is known that one of the reasons the fire raged on was because it was not only caused by wood but fueled by pitch, gunpowder, alcohol, turpentine, sugar, oil and among others.
While there were many factors that caused the Great Fire of 1666, Thomas Farynor is charged with beginning the fire. In 1986, the Worshipful Company of Bakers apologized for his unintentional actions.
Many historians attribute the start of the London Fire of 1666 to Thomas Farynor and his bakery. In the early morning hours of September 2, a fire began at the bakery, which was located on Pudding Lane near the London Bridge. A spark from Farynor's improperly extinguished oven spread to a nearby pile of firewood, igniting the building very quickly. Farynor and his family managed to escape the bakery before the fire spread too far.
A bacterial disease known as Yersinia pestis, which had affected the city in 1625, returned more powerful than its previous mutations. Dirty living conditions and overcrowding meant that the disease spread rampantly throughout London, killing a large portion of people within the city.
Sanitation was not a top priority, which led to the rapid spread of disease as well as fire later on. Urbanization, overcrowding, and poor sanitation were the major factors that led to catastrophe in the middle of the century.
Of the nearly 400,000 citizens of London, city records suggest that around 69,000 died as a result of the Great Plague of 1665. Historians note that the death toll may have been closer to 100,000 people. The lack of medicine or proper treatment at the time prolonged the event into the year 1666. For the second year in a row, London would experience hardship and struggle caused by both the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.
To prevent an event such as the Great Fire from happening again, London was rebuilt with less flammable materials. Houses were constructed out of brick or stone. They were also spread much farther apart and streets were made much wider than they had previously been. Paved streets and an updated sewer system were also featured as part of the newly planned city.
The city of London was growing because of the influx of people moving to the city for work. Consequently, buildings needed to be constructed quickly to accommodate and house them. The compact streets of the city were filled with buildings made of oak timber and tar (to prevent water leakage), as well as straw and coal. These highly flammable materials, combined with existing dangers in the city, made London a tinderbox waiting to ignite and were a key factor in the fire's widespread impact.
Causes of the Great Fire of London. The easiest way to state the cause of the Great Fire of London is to blame Thomas Farynor and his family and servants. Farynor owned a bakery in Pudding Lane (near London Bridge), and a fire started in the bakery sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. on September 2, 1666. The rest, as they say, is history.
And as the fire spread, chaos made things worse. The streets were clogged with people carting their goods out of the city or throwing them into the Thames River in a last-ditch bid to save them from the blaze. Those fighting the fire had trouble getting through to the blaze as a result.
On top of that, the summer of 1666 had been especially hot, dry, and long. That only made it that much easier for a fire to start and spread. It also depleted water reserves that might have been used to help put out the fire, although no real system of fire prevention nor fire extinguishment existed back then. London relied on volunteers and crude firefighting techniques, such as bucket chains or basically useless primitive fire engines. The only other option to try and contain the spread of a fire was to literally use a big hook to pull down buildings one by one, thereby creating a perimeter around the fire to hopefully prevent its spread.
The Great Fire of London: Destroyed 80% of the city. Officially killed only six people, although that's probably an understatement. Burned at about 2282 degrees Fahreinheit at its peak. Destroyed about 13,500 homes. Burned down 87 churches and St. Paul's Cathedral.
Ultimately, many factors led to the start and eventual spread of the fire. The Great Fire of London destroyed 80% of the city.
By the time everything was settled, 80% of London had burned down - 436 acres, according to official surveys shortly after the fire. Officially, only six people died in the fire, but this is likely a gross underestimation. London's many poor people were never recorded by authorities, especially those who were not born there, and their fates likely were not counted. Another problem is that because the fire burned so hot (2282 degrees Fahrenheit), there would've been few traces left of any victims. The fire's temperature was far higher than even that of a crematorium.
Another problem is that because the fire burned so hot (2282 degrees Fahrenheit), there would've been few traces left of any victims .
There is no doubt that the Great Fire was an awful tragedy – but it did lead to some positive changes to London. The city was rebuilt in a safer and more organised way, so that such a disaster would not happen again. Streets were made wider, and buildings were made from brick or stone (rather than wood), with better access to water. What’s more, London’s first fire brigades were formed to tackle any future blazes that might break out. What a relief!
The Great Fire of London started at around 1am on Sunday 2 September 1666. And boy did it burn! The fire raged for four days straight, until its final fizzles were extinguished on Thursday 6 September 1666.
Rather than fight the fire, people’s first reaction was to get away from the raging flames as quickly as possible – and who could blame them?! In a state of panic, they collected all the belongings they could carry and fled. Some sprinted to the hills, while others fled to the River Thames, where they boarded boats. Thomas and his family sure didn’t stick around – they escaped through their upstairs window and onto the neighbour’s roof!
In 17th century London, not only were buildings made from wood and straw, but they stood very close together, making it easy for fire to spread. Plus, warehouses around Pudding Lane contained flammable materials such as oil and rope which soon caught alight, fuelling the flames! The long, dry summer that year didn’t help the situation much either….
The fire started in the home of a baker named Thomas Farynor (Farriner), located on London’s Pudding Lane. Thomas wasn’t your average baker, though – he was King Charles II ’s baker. Impressive, eh?
Paul’s Cathedral, which was redesigned by the famous architect Sir Christopher Wren. Christopher also designed the famous Monument to the Great Fire of London, which stands near to Pudding Lane, so that this important historical event would never be forgotten.
Most of what we know about the Great Fire of London came from the diaries of two men called Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, who both left eyewitness accounts of this famous tragedy.
London had already burned several times in its history, most notably in 1212, but in September 1666 the conditions were present for an inferno of epic proportions. The city of 500,000 people was a tinderbox of cramped streets and timber-frame structures, many of them built with flammable pitch and tar. Stables filled with hay and straw were everywhere, and many cellars and warehouses were packed with combustible materials such as turpentine, lamp oil and coal. To make matters worse, a months-long drought had created a water shortage and left most of the wood buildings kindling-dry.
As the fire raged, many people took refuge in St. Paul’s Cathedral, a medieval church whose 500-foot spire had long ...
Fanned by a powerful easterly wind, the bakery fire soon spread to other buildings on Pudding Lane before leaping to nearby Fish Street, where it torched the stables of a hotel called the Star Inn. When it reached a ship’s supply store, it heated up several barrels of tar, which exploded and rained flaming debris across the neighborhood. The blaze then moved south toward the River Thames, consuming every building in its path. The Church of St. Magnus the Martyr went up in smoke—one of the first of the 84 churches lost in the fire—as did dozens of riverside guildhalls and warehouses. Flames also ripped through half the buildings and waterwheels on London Bridge, but were halted when they reached a gap in construction caused by a previous fire in 1633.
“London was, but is no more,” Evelyn lamented. Compared to the scale of the destruction, the supposed death toll was miniscule. Official reports listed as few as four people killed, but many modern researchers believe the number failed to include those whose bodies were cremated by the flames. “The true death toll of the Great Fire of London is not four or six or eight, ” author Neil Hanson has argued, “it is several hundred and quite possibly several thousand times that number.”
St. Paul’s would prove to be one of the last major buildings to fall victim to the Great Fire. That same night, the fierce easterly wind that had been feeding the blaze finally abated, allowing the Duke of York’s brigades to make progress with their firebreaks.
In the end, however, the new London looked much the same as the old one, albeit with wider alleys and more brick structures. By far the biggest construction project was architect Christopher Wren’s new St. Paul’s Cathedral , which was completed in 1711, 45 years after the original burned in the Great Fire. The rebuilt cathedral would later become famous for surviving what has often been called the “Second Great Fire of London”—an incendiary bomb attack during World War II’s London Blitz.
Most were extinguished the following day. All told, the Great Fire had destroyed 13,200 buildings and left an estimated 100,000 people homeless.