Fire Rains on London: City Reborn in Ash

A small fire in a bakery on Pudding Lane jumped to a neighboring inn shortly after midnight on September 2, 1666, and within four days had consumed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, and the medieval St. Paul's Cathedral, destroying roughly 80 percent of the City of London. The Great Fire burned so hot that the lead roof of St. Paul's melted and ran through the streets in molten rivers, and the stones of the cathedral exploded from the thermal shock. An estimated 70,000 of the City's 80,000 residents were left homeless. The fire spread with terrifying speed because London in 1666 was essentially a tinderbox. Houses were built of timber with pitch-coated walls, packed together along narrow medieval lanes, and the summer of 1666 had been exceptionally dry. Mayor Sir Thomas Bloodworth, roused from sleep to assess the situation, famously dismissed the blaze with the words "A woman might piss it out," and went back to bed. By the time organized firefighting began, the fire had jumped multiple streets and was beyond control. King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York took personal command of the firefighting effort, ordering buildings demolished to create firebreaks when it became clear that the bucket brigades were useless against the inferno. Sailors from the Royal Navy used gunpowder to blow up rows of houses in the fire's path. The wind finally shifted on September 5, and the firebreaks held, allowing the blaze to burn itself out near the Tower of London. Remarkably, the official death toll was recorded as just six people, though historians believe the actual number was significantly higher, as deaths among the poor and transient population went unrecorded. The fire's aftermath transformed London from a medieval city into a modern one. Christopher Wren designed 51 new churches, including the new St. Paul's Cathedral, and building codes mandated brick and stone construction. The fire also destroyed the rat-infested neighborhoods that had harbored the Great Plague the year before, effectively ending the epidemic that had killed roughly 100,000 Londoners.