The Great Fire Of London

The Great Fire of London

The old city of London is certainly a place teeming with history. Over the years, London has been racked with innumerable adversities and tragedies that largely contributed to the years of setback. Interestingly enough, instead of marring and tarnishing the beauty of London, the misfortunes that befell the city seemed to have added to the charm and character of the place and the people living in it.

One of the most devastating calamity that made quite a history is the Great Fire of London, which dates back in September 2, 1666. As recorded in the history books, it was a rather calm Sunday morning when the cuty was set fire that lasted for five days and burned down roughly around 13,200 houses. Amazingly, in view of the massive destruction there were only six people who were reported to have been killed by the fire. However, the city is practically reduced to cinders, with miles and miles of thich ashes that lined up the streets of London. At that time, the Great Fire of London effectively dashed all hopes of people since they were still suffering from the vestiges of the Great Plague at that time that took away 17, 440 lives out of the recorded 93,000 population.

The Great Fire of London was said to have started in the combined house and shop of King Charles II's baker, Thomas Farynor located inPudding Lane. Accounts of the tragedy divulged that Farynor have forgotten to douse the fire in his oven before he went to bed. The embers caught on and set light to a stach of firewood. Soon after, the family all woke up with their house full of smoke and hastily escaped through the windows. However, the very first victim of the Great Fire of London was Farynor's maih who were too afraid to climb atop the roof.

Since most of the medieval houses of London at that time have thatched houses, the fire rapidly spread from one hous eto another. Soon after, it was like a burning inferno, engulfing st. Margaret's church and extended throughout Thames Street. Predictably there were no trained firefighters at that time, and ordinary civilians are not competent enough to deal with the large scale fire. For people with properties, they soon found themselves living in abject poverty.

However, because of the Great Fire of London, a number of great things have resulted from the tragedy. The concept of insurance can be directly traced back to the great fire. Even the modern fire system that we now enjoy today are mere products of the fire that made a lot of people live in utter destitution.