It started with a spark. Just one. Thomas Farriner, the King’s baker on Pudding Lane, probably thought he’d damped down his oven properly on that Saturday night in September 1666. He was wrong. By 1:00 AM Sunday, his house was an inferno. Most people think the Great Fire of London was just a big campfire that got out of hand, but it was actually a perfect storm of bad luck, terrible urban planning, and a summer so dry the wooden houses were basically giant matchsticks waiting to be struck.
London back then was a mess. A beautiful, crowded, filthy mess.
Houses were built of timber and smeared with flammable pitch. They leaned over the narrow streets, their upper floors—called jetties—reaching out so far they almost touched the house across the way. You could literally lean out your window and shake hands with your neighbor. This meant that once Farriner’s bakery went up, the flames didn't just crawl; they leaped.
Why the Great Fire of London was Unstoppable
You have to understand the wind. A stiff easterly gale was blowing that night, pushing the sparks from the riverside straight into the heart of the City. Lord Mayor Thomas Bloodworth was woken up early on Sunday to see the blaze. His reaction? He famously said a woman could "piss it out" and went back to sleep. Seriously. That might be one of the worst leadership calls in human history.
By the time he realized the Great Fire of London wasn't a joke, it was too late.
The standard firefighting method back then wasn't high-pressure hoses. They used leather buckets and "fire hooks" to pull down burning buildings to create gaps. If there’s no wood to burn, the fire stops. Simple, right? But Bloodworth hesitated to authorize the destruction of property because he was worried about the cost of rebuilding. By the time the King, Charles II, took command and ordered the houses to be blown up with gunpowder to create massive firebreaks, the heat was so intense that people couldn't even get close enough to work.
Imagine the sound. Thousands of houses groaning and collapsing, the roar of a wind-fed fire that had turned into a "firestorm"—a self-sustaining weather system of heat. Samuel Pepys, whose diary provides the most famous eyewitness account of the disaster, described seeing a "malicious bloody flame" that stretched for a mile. He eventually buried his expensive Parmesan cheese and wine in his garden to save them. That’s how desperate things got. People weren't just losing homes; they were losing their entire lives.
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The Myth of the Low Death Toll
If you look at the official records from 1666, they say only about six to ten people died in the Great Fire of London. Honestly, that's almost certainly nonsense.
History books often repeat this number because those were the "recorded" deaths. But think about it. The fire reached temperatures over 1,250°C (about 2,280°F). At that heat, human remains—especially those of the poor, the elderly, or the disabled who couldn't escape—would have been completely cremated. There wouldn't be a body to find. Plus, the official "Bills of Mortality" didn't track the deaths of the city's poorest residents.
There's also the aftermath to consider.
Thousands were left homeless, sleeping in fields in Highgate and Islington. It was a cold, wet winter following the fire. How many died of exposure, hunger, or pneumonia because their city had turned to ash? We’ll never actually know the true cost in human lives.
St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Melting Lead
One of the most tragic sights was the destruction of the old St. Paul’s Cathedral. It was a massive stone structure. People thought it was the safest place in the city. Booksellers even crammed the crypts full of their inventory, thinking the thick stone walls would protect their paper.
They were wrong.
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The cathedral was covered in scaffolding for repairs, which caught fire first. The heat became so extreme that the lead roofing—acres of it—started to melt. Eyewitnesses described a literal river of molten lead flowing down Ludgate Hill, glowing red in the dark. The stones of the cathedral eventually exploded from the internal pressure of the heat. It was a total loss.
The Scapegoat: Who Did London Blame?
People were angry. They needed someone to blame for the Great Fire of London.
In the 17th century, if something went wrong, you blamed "the others." Rumors flew that the fire was a plot by the French or the Dutch (with whom England was at war) or, most commonly, the Catholics. A poor, mentally unstable French watchmaker named Robert Hubert actually confessed to starting the fire on behalf of the Pope. Even though it was later proven that he wasn't even in London when the fire started—he arrived two days late—they hanged him anyway.
The city was so convinced of a conspiracy that for over 150 years, the inscription on the Monument to the Great Fire actually blamed "Popish frenzy" for the blaze. It wasn't removed until 1830.
How the Fire Actually Helped (Sort Of)
It feels wrong to say a disaster was "good," but the Great Fire of London did solve one massive problem: The Great Plague of 1665. Just a year earlier, the Black Death had killed about 100,000 Londoners. The fire tore through the filthy, rat-infested slums where the plague-carrying fleas lived. By burning the city to the ground, it effectively sterilized the area.
When it came time to rebuild, London had a choice.
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Architects like Christopher Wren wanted to turn London into a mini-Paris, with wide boulevards and radial grids. But the city's merchants were impatient. They wanted their shops back. In the end, London was rebuilt mostly on its old medieval street plan, which is why the city's layout is still so confusing today. However, new laws forced people to build with brick and stone instead of wood. The streets were made wider. The jetties were banned.
The city became safer, even if it lost some of its old-world charm.
Actionable Insights for History Enthusiasts
If you're interested in seeing the physical remnants of the fire or learning more about how it shaped modern urban planning, here are the best ways to engage with this history:
- Visit the Monument: Located near the northern end of London Bridge, you can climb the 311 steps to the top. It stands 202 feet tall—the exact distance from its base to where the fire started in Pudding Lane.
- Find Golden Boy of Pye Corner: Most people know where the fire started, but fewer know where it stopped. A small gilded statue at Pye Corner marks the spot where the fire finally died down. It was placed there as a reminder that the fire was "God's punishment" for the sin of gluttony (since it started at a bakery and ended at Pye Corner).
- Read the Primary Sources: Don't just take a historian's word for it. Look up the digital archives of Samuel Pepys' diary. His entry for September 2, 1666, is some of the most gripping "live reporting" you will ever read.
- Museum of London Docklands: While the main Museum of London is currently moving, their collections regarding the 1666 fire are world-class. Look for the fire buckets and the scorched ceramics recovered from the ash layers.
- Check the "Fire Marks": If you walk around the older parts of the City of London, look for lead plaques on buildings. These were insurance marks. After the Great Fire, the first insurance companies were formed. They had their own private fire brigades, and they would only put out the fire if the building had their specific mark on the wall.
The Great Fire of London wasn't just a historical event; it was the birth of the modern city. It forced London to evolve from a wooden medieval town into a stone and brick metropolis. It changed how we think about fire safety, insurance, and the responsibility of the government to its citizens during a crisis. Next time you're walking down a narrow London alleyway, remember that beneath your feet lies a layer of ash—the remains of a city that burned down and refused to stay dead.
The reconstruction of London after 1666 remains one of the fastest and most significant urban renewals in history. While the grand designs of Wren weren't fully realized, the implementation of the 1667 Rebuilding Act set the precedent for building regulations that still influence modern architecture today. Understanding the fire isn't just about the destruction; it's about the resilience of a city that repurposed its own ruins to build something more permanent.