Human consequences
About 70,000 of the City’s roughly 80,000 inhabitants are left homeless.
Home › All disasters › Great Fire of London
Fire & heatwaveGreat Fire of London
6Deaths
70,000Displaced / homeless
Not quantifiedEstimated cost
- Six deaths officially recorded; the real toll, especially among the poor, was probably higher.
Starting in a bakery on Pudding Lane, the fire spreads for four days through a city of timber-framed houses. About 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches and St Paul’s Cathedral are destroyed.
Consequences
Environmental consequences
The medieval street fabric disappears; reconstruction requires brick and stone.
Economic consequences
Birth of modern fire insurance, with Nicholas Barbon’s “Fire Office”.
Political consequences
The Rebuilding Act of 1667 sets building standards; Christopher Wren rebuilds St Paul’s and 51 churches.
Further reading
Similar disasters
- Bazar de la Charité fireFire & heatwave · France1897
- European heatwaveFire & heatwave · Europe2003
- “Black Summer” megafiresFire & heatwave · Australia2019 – 2020
- Chernobyl disasterNuclear · Ukraine (USSR)1986
Explore it on the 3D globe. See this disaster among 88 of the major disasters in history, from Pompeii to the present day, with its spread, its timeline and comparable events.
See it on the globe