The Great Fire started on 2 September 1666 in the bakery of Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane, Eastcheap. It’s thought his maid forgot to ensure the ovens were put out, and just after midnight the fire took hold. The summer had dried the housing timber and a strong easterly wind fanned the blaze.

The fire started at 1am on Sunday morning on 2 September in Thomas Farriner’s bakery on Pudding Lane. It may have been caused by a spark from his oven falling onto a pile of fuel nearby. The fire spread easily because London was very dry after a long, hot summer. The area around Pudding Lane was full of warehouses containing highly flammable things like timber, rope and oil. A very strong easterly wind blew the fire from house to house in the narrow streets.

In 1979 archaeologists excavated the remains of a burntout shop on Pudding Lane which was very close to the bakery where the fire started. In the cellar they found the charred remnants of 20 barrels of pitch (tar). Pitch burns very easily and would have helped to spread the fire. Among the burnt objects from the shop, the archaeologists found these melted pieces of pottery which show that the temperature of the fire was as high as 1700 degrees Celsius!

As the fire was spreading so quickly most Londoners concentrated on escaping, rather than fighting the fire. They rescued as many of their belongings as they could carry and fled. Thomas Farriner and his family had to climb out of an upstairs window and onto their neighbour’s roof to escape the fire in their bakery.  

As this painting shows, many Londoners fled to the river and tried to load their goods onto boats to get away to safety. Other people rushed through the City gates and went to the fields outside London. They stayed there for many days, sheltering in tents and shacks. Some people were forced to live in this way for months and even years

There was no fire brigade in London in 1666 so Londoners themselves had to fight the fire, helped by local soldiers. They used buckets of water, water squirts and fire hooks like this one. Equipment was stored in local churches. The best way to stop the fire was to pull down houses with hooks to make gaps or ‘fire breaks’. This was difficult because the wind forced the fire across any gaps created. The mayor, Thomas Bludworth, complained, ‘the fire overtakes us faster than we can do it.’ 

A quicker way of demolishing houses was to blow them up with gunpowder, but this technique wasn’t used until the third day of the fire (Tuesday 4 September). Fire Posts, each staffed by 130 men, were set up around the City to fight the blaze. On Tuesday night the wind dropped and the firefighters finally gained control. By dawn on Thursday the fire was out.

Fire