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Fire In 17th Century London

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England during the 17th century was a time of disease and destruction. During this time, the bubonic plague killed thousands of Londoners and a massive fire destroyed the majority of the city. This era can be examined by studying London itself, events of the plague, and the incident of the fire.

London during the mid-1660s was filthy; its streets were teeming with garbage, sewage, excrement, and other waste. The waste from the streets would end up going into the Thames river, contaminating it with garbage.i Among all of this trash, more than 460,000 people were living in loud, overcrowded, and unsanitary conditions in London.ii These people were also the ones who were using the contaminated river water for cooking, drinking, and bathing. …show more content…
On top of its hot summer temperatures, the city was suffering through a drought. Also, London's buildings had timber structures and many had wooden porches facing each other.vi This hot, dry, and wooden setting made London at a severe risk for catching on fire. Londoners were worried that if a fire ever ignited it would spread so easily to everything and would be difficult to extinguish. With limited water, and only a few fire trucks a large-scale fire would be nearly impossible to put out. In order to try to prevent such a destructive fire from happening laws requiring buckets of water to be kept by every door, ladders to be ready, and axes, and firehooks to be placed in churches.vii Despite these laws, people still ignored them and found other uses for the buckets, ladders, and axes. With wooden homes, hot temperatures, lacking water, and unprepared people London was going to suffer immensely during the Great Fire of …show more content…
On Sunday, September 2nd 1666 at around 1 in the morning in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane. It was thought to have happened because a spark from the oven fell and caught something on fire which caused the fire to spread. The city's wooden buildings, hot temperatures, and dry season allowed the fire to instantly ignite to anything in its path. The fire spread from Pudding Lane to nearly every street in London, destroying everything it touched. The London Bridge and some ships in the river even caught on fire.xviii As the fire burned many citizens, nobles, soldiers, and militiamen worked long and hard to put the fire out.xix From the help of Londoners, the main fire was eventually put out, but smaller fires were constantly appearing over the next couple days from the still hot ruins coating the city. Because of the little fires frequently popping up efforts to remove the rubble and debris and to clean up the streets began quickly. Tens of thousands of tons of ash and rubble had to be removed from the streets.xx The fire burned at about 1,000 degrees. This extreme heat calcined the victims' bodies, turned bone to dust, and flesh into ashes which could be found in these piles of debris.xxi Also, any inns, churches, hall, and taverns that survived the fire were opened for any survivors. These buildings contained tents and shacks in them for people who were now homeless. After 5 days the fires were

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