The Great Fire of London

September 2, 1666 – At about one o’clock in the morning, fire broke out at the home and bakery of Thomas Farriner on London’s Pudding Lane. Farriner provided bread for the Royal Navy, so his ovens were almost always blazing hot. A spark somehow escaped, and thus began the Great Fire of London.

Farriner and his family fled through an upstairs window, crawling across rooftops to reach safety. His maid was unwilling to jump and became the first victim of the conflagration.

The fire spread westward into the heart of the City, finding unlimited fuel in the dry timber houses and warehouses packed with oil, spirits, hemp, and pitch. Fanned by strong winds, flames leapt street to street.

For four terrible days, vast swaths of London were reduced to ash. Thousands of citizens, parish firemen, and soldiers — under the direct orders of King Charles II — created fire lines by pulling down and blowing up buildings in the path of the firestorm. Samuel Pepys recorded that the stones of St. Paul’s Cathedral “flew like grenados, the lead running down the streets in a stream.”

When it was over, more than 13,000 homes and 87 churches, including St. Paul’s itself, were destroyed. Around 80,000 people were left homeless. The final death toll is unknown. The official count listed only six fatalities, but this excluded servants, the poor, and transients. Most historians now believe the true toll was likely in the thousands.