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The great fire of london
Fire of london essay
Fire of london essay
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The Great Fire of London In the year 1666, one of the most horrific, destructive fires started in London. A bakery on Pudding Lane destroyed just about all of London, the fire left nothing for the people living there and burnt down everything. The Great Fire of London left the city in ruins, followed by fear and sorrow, and yet it provided the city with an opportunity to build an entirely new London. On the night of September 1, 1666 “a little bakery on Pudding Lane had entered history for all the wrong reasons” (Lawrence). Thomas Farynor, the baker for King Charles II, would bake goods every day. Farynor went through his daily routine of cleaning up but this time made a mistake. He forgot to turn off one of the several ovens he had in the house, because of this, a fire started in the bakery and went throughout the house. Farynor went to warn the household so that way they could escape the burning house in time. London was in a drought that summer, causing the houses built of wood to be dry. The fire from Farynor’s house …show more content…
This fire was unprepared to fight by the fire post and everyone willing to help put it out. “King Charles II did his best to organize people to fight the fire, no amount of effort was able to stop it”(Alagna, 23). The equipment that was being used such as leather buckets, water pipes, and hand pumps were not helpful. They also had fire extinguishers to fight against the fire but were not very effective with putting out big fires. “ Soon, the fire became so strong that it could not be put out with buckets of water and the hand pumps that were typically used” (Alagna, 19). After hours of fighting the fire everyone realized it was unstoppable and letting the fire burn out itself would be the best
The fire started at approx. 1415 hours and burns slowly for the first few minuets carrying heat and smoke up the unprotected stairwell and into a hole leading t...
The years 1348 through 1350 had been an extremely gruesome and miserable time in our world’s history. During this time period, one of the most devastating pandemics in history had struck half the world with an intensifying and deadly blow. It had been responsible for over 75 million deaths and 20 million of these deaths were from Europe alone. Out of the countries that were hit hardest in Europe from mortality rates and economic downturns, England was one of them. This grave disease that marked the end of the middle ages and the start of the modern age is known as the Black Plague.
“On one side we see men of some years disheartened and retired from productive exertion. On the other hand, we see places open for younger men” (“Political Economy of the Fire”). After the devastating fire, one hundred thousand people were left without a home.
high winds. Many of the people were burned and buried in the smashed up bricks
Before the fire broke out on Sunday night, October 8, 1871 there had been a large drought causing everything to be dry and extremely flammable. Many fires had been breaking out in Chicago. Records show that in 1870 the fire fighters went to nearly 600 fires. On Saturday night there had been a large fire that destroyed about four blocks and lasted for 16 hours. Another reason why everything in Chicago was so flammable was because almost the entire city was made out of wood. It was a lot worse in the middle class and poor sections of the town (19). Just about every house was made out of wood. Even buildings that claimed to be fire proof had wood roofs covered with tar. The richer part of town had stone and brick homes, but wooden interiors, wooden stables, and wooden storage buildings (Cromie, 81). Chicago was built on marshland and every time it rained the city flooded, so to help this problem the roads were made out of wood and elevated above the waterline. The day the fire started there were over 55 miles of pine-block street and 600 miles of wooden sidewalks. “Chicago in 1871 was a city ready to burn,” according to Jim Murphy, author of The Great Fire (Murphy, 18).
Dry weather combined with many wooden buildings, sidewalks and streets were open to catching fire and eventually led to it happening (Chicago Fire, 1). The fire spread uncontrollably to the northeast and central of the city. The downtown and north of Chicago was taken in flames but the stockyards on the south and west were not touched by the fire (Fire of 1871, 2). 17,500 buildings have been destroyed, a total of 78 miles of pavements were covered in flames (Murphy, 100). That night the wind was at 30 miles per hour, but there were many whirl flames that traveled to and across the city (Great Chicago Fire, 2). Amid the day and age of the fire the populace was assessed roughly around 324,000 individuals. Inside nine years after the decimation the populace was 500,000 (Chicago Fire, 2). Before the tragic event of the fire, the summer of 1871 was extremely hot, and Chicago went threw a horrific drought. From July to the day of the fire there was only three inches of rainfall in Chicago. In fact, one night before the great downfall a different fire began that was battled out by all fire companies to compose it. Many residents felt that Chicago was saved from disaster after putting the fire to rest (The Great Fire, 2). There was a myth that mention that the fire started by a cow tipping over a lantern
Mrs. Rayfield wrote a great article about the devastation left over after this massive fire. I found that her accounts were very detailed and had good pictures to go along with them. I decided to use this source in my essay because she also showed the good effect that the fire had on the city not only the bad. She had a complete different point of view.
The destruction and devastation caused by the 'Black Death' of the Middle Ages was a phenomenon left to wonder at in text books of historical Europe. An unstoppable plague swept the continent taking as much as eighty percent of the European population along with it (Forsyth).
People around the city went to bed, everything seemed relatively normal. Smoke dwindling into the dark night sky, the faint smell of burning wood. All normal for Chicago. Fires were a daily part of life for this wooden city. Near the time of 2 a.m. the fire didn’t seem so normal and average anymore. A mean flame was being born, it was blazing to life.
The physical damage done to San Francisco due to the earthquake was extensive. The earthquake caused gas lines to rupture and chimneys to collapse which resulted in perhaps the greatest devastation from the earthquake, the fires. About fifty fires broke out around the city that in combination with the earthquake caused the destruction of about 28,000 buildings (The Great San Francisco Earthquake: One of America's Worst Urban Disasters. 2005). The fires continued to burn for four days because the water mains had burst; therefore, the hydrants had no water. Desperation sunk in and the fire department and military, having no water to stop the fires, used dynamite to create firebreaks. This ultimately backfired and led to the fires expanding. When the fires stopped, the city was left in ruins with 80% of it being destroyed (Dean. Pg 506).
All throughout London’s essay, one sees that he focus’ on the destruction of the city in the 1906 earthquake. He defines the city as, “wiped out” and “all gone” which gives his essay a fearful and defeated tone at the beginning. London goes on to define the city as it is alive, “half the heart of the city was gone”. In paragraph five he again explains the city to be alive, “Wednesday night saw the destruction of
July through October only had a few showers that did not contain much water, and even when it did rain, it flooded. They were going through a very long drought, and they had already had a fire the night before and the blaze destroyed four blocks. The wind wasn’t on their side either. The wind was rushing up from the south east, and the gust of wind spread the fire from building to building in a matter of seconds. The fire alarms were not helpful either, because many of them were very hard to get to. And of course back then, at that time, there were no phones! When William Lee raced to the fire alarm at Gull’s drug store the “ fire was only 15 minutes old. What followed was a series of fatal errors that set the fire free and doomed the city of Chicago to a fiery
Throughout recorded history, fires have been known to cause great loss of life, property, and knowledge. The Great Fire of London was easily one of the worst fires mankind has ever seen causing large scale destruction and terror. Samuel Pepys described the fire as “A most malicious bloody flame, as one entire arch of fire of above a mile long… the churches, houses and all on fire and flaming at once, and a horrid noise the flames made.” (Britain Express 1).
Sunday September 2, 1666 at 2 a.m. was the day when the fire began (Cowie, 59). It had all began in a baker’s house due to a spark that was “left” in one of his ovens. ‘”, all that was needed was a spark. This was provided at the house of Thomas Farynor, the King’s baker in Pudding Lane…”’ (“London’s Burning: The Great Fire”, 1). In this area was known as a poor area and it was also very dirty. All the houses were made out of wood, which fed the fire and it started to spread. The baker’s house was the first house to burn down and that is also where the first tragedy took place. The wind was strong during this time and as it blew it would push the fire and help it spread through the city. The people started waking up due to the smell of the smoke and they tried to put the fire out as fast as they could. The fire fighters even tired to stop the fire but it was to big for one truck to handle. One of the residents ran to the Mayors house to warm him of what was happening. When told of what was happening, “…the L...
One of the factors which made the fire quickly rage was the strong wind. The fire spread far up to Steele-yard, then to the White Hall, and up to the king’s closet in the Chappell. People living in the city tried to endeavor with their property. They loaded goods to save; especially extraordinary goods were carried in their carts and on their backs. There were sick patients carried in beds here and there.