Can anybody tell me how the great fire of london happend?

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Poison

It was on the night of 2 September, 1666. Thomas Farrinor (sometimes spelled Farynor), of Pudding Lane, baker to King Charles II, neglected to make sure his oven was out. He thought the fire was extinguished, but some embers were still - and ignited nearby firewood.

lukee

I think it was a flame that started the fire

Wassup

sum dumb moron left they're buns in the ovens, =P lol, and then bam, u got a big fire in london!

The Psychedelic Wardrobe Monster

Some drunk Irish eejit dropped a cigarette butt!

And yes it's a crap joke but I'm bladdered and can't be asked which is funny as I've typed this much!

must meen I'mIrish

kevin h

FLAME WOOD BUILDINGS fire

taxed till i die,

It started in a bakers shop he left the oven on.

Pengy

Tamart

Started in a bakery. Samuel Pepys noted it in his diary.

carmel_andrews

The Bakers Shop in Question is now a Bank (not surprisingly)

There's a Plaque on the side of the building indicating that this is where the Great fire of London started

The Monument (built by Wren) stands opposite the location of what used to be the Bakers Shop

technocase

I over cooked my bread.
Sorry.
Mind you i like toast.

dels replies

A bakers shop caught fire ,near to where the Monument is now placed,and as the houses and buildings were mainly of wood, and very close together the blaze soon spread.There was not a fire brigade as we know it and many acres of London were destroyed including many churches before eventually the fire was extinguished.The year was 1666. It gave an opportunity for a lot of London to be rebuilt in a much better style than he buildings that were destroyed.Sir Christopher Wren was one of the leading architects involved in the rebuilding.I believe the bakers shop was in Pudding Lane,

paddymayblue

With a small flame may be a mach

seph

Last November at my house.

I think there was another one hundreds of years ago but it had no fireworks so can't have been that great.

I even provided nibbles.

mikail brown

carelessness
it was an insurance scam
my wife left the oven on

DEREK W

The fire wasn't that great , London is still there.

PETER M

some one lit a match lol
no the real reason i think was that it started in the bakers shop i think i am right

mkultra

It started because some one left an oven on in a bakery. Though initially it was blamed on Jewish vandals. Can't remember street names.

aaroncbcb

i am sure it was started in a bakers shop in the very early hours

Chazz

Apparantly, some baker didn't put the fire out properly in the oven and because the houses where made of wood the fire spread all over the city ( bet the baker wouldn't have been too popular after that (if he survived that is))

Confuzzled

The fire started at the bakery of Thomas Farriner (or Farynor) in Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday, 2 September, and spread rapidly. The use of the major firefighting technique of the time, the creation of firebreaks by means of demolition, was critically delayed due to the indecisiveness of the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth. By the time large-scale demolitions were ordered on Sunday night, the wind had already fanned the bakery fire into a firestorm which defeated such measures. The fire pushed north on Monday into the heart of the City. Order in the streets broke down as rumours arose of suspicious foreigners setting fires. The fears of the homeless focused on the French and Dutch, England's enemies in the ongoing Second Anglo-Dutch War; these substantial immigrant groups became victims of lynchings and street violence. On Tuesday, the fire spread over most of the City, destroying St. Paul's Cathedral and leaping the River Fleet to threaten Charles II's court at Whitehall. Coordinated firefighting efforts were simultaneously mobilising. The battle to quench the fire is considered to have been won by two factors: the strong east winds died down, and the Tower of London garrison used gunpowder to create effective firebreaks to halt further spread eastward.

Kernow Lover

On Sunday morning, the 2nd September 1666, the destruction of medieval London began. Within 5 days the city which Shakespeare had known was destroyed by fire. An area of one and a half miles by half a mile lay in ashes; 373 acres inside the city walls and 63 acres outside, 87 churches destroyed (including St. Paul's Cathedral) and 13,200 houses. In all this destruction, it is amazing that only 6 people are definitely known to have been killed. However, it seems likely that the actual death toll was much higher. In destroying the close packed houses and other buildings it is also likely that the fire finally put an end to the Great Plague that had devastated the city in the previous year - killing 17,440 out of the population of 93,000.

The fire started in the house and shop of Thomas Farynor, baker to King Charles II in Pudding Lane (the site of Farynor's house is marked today by the Monument). Farynor forgot to douse the fire in his oven on the previous night and embers set light to the nearby stacked firewood. By one o'clock in the morning, three hours after Farynor had gone to bed, the house and shop were well alight. Farynor's assistant woke finding the house full of smoke and the roused the household. Farynor, his wife and daughter and one servant escaped by climbing through an upstairs window and along the roof tops. The maid was too frightened to climb along the roof and stayed in the house - becoming the first victim of the fire.

Sparks from the burning house fell on hay and straw in the yard of the Star Inn at Fish Street Hill. The London of 1666 was a city of half timbered and pitch covered medieval buildings, mostly with thatched rooves. These buildings were extreme fire risks and ignited very easily. In the strong winds that blew that morning, the sparks spread rapidly, setting fire to rooves and houses as they fell. From the Star Inn, the fire engulfed St. Margaret's church and then entered Thames Street. Here there were warehouses and wharves packed with flammable materials - oil, spirits, tallow, hemp, straw, coal etc. By now the fire was far too fierce to be fought with the crude hand operated devices that were all that was available. By 8.00am, seven hours after the fire had started, the flames were half way across old London Bridge. Only the gap left by a previous fire in 1633 prevented the flames from crossing the bridge and starting new fires in Southwark on the south bank of the river.

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