The Great London Fire Of 1666.
How has modern firefighting come to be? Firefighter’s now days have become more efficient in fighting fires. Insurance companies decided it would be cheaper to train and enhance the skills of the firefighters in order to prevent big fires rather than to reimburse customers for their lost possessions. To understand the cause behind the great leap in advancement of firefighting we first have to understand the cause. The Great Fire Of 1666 sparked the fire in the hearts of the people to find better ways of preventing and stopping fires in order to never have to endure the hardships the Londoners faced after the Fire Of 1666.
The Great London Fire Of 1666 started on September 2nd, 1666. The fire started in the bakery
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Some say where almost a force sent from the havens. The citizens tried combating this fire alongside the volunteer firefighters at the time, but armed with only leather buckets filled from the river the fire seemed unstoppable. By eight ‘o-clock the next morning the fire had crept slowly across the London Bridge and was now threatening Southwark, The only thing stopping it was the gap left behind by the fire of 1633.
At this time in history the greatest way of combating a fire of this magnitude was to destroy the buildings in the path of the fast moving fire in order to destroy the fuel for it to keep its momentum. “The standard procedure to stop a fire from spreading had always been to destroy the houses on the path of the flames, creating “fire-breaks”, to deprive a fire from fuel.”(“Anniina. “The Great Fire of London, 1666.”). Lord Mayor Bludworth wasn’t very keen on this idea because he was worried about the cost of rebuilding and reimbursing the people for their destroyed property. A royal command enacted by Sir Samuel Pepys ordered soldiers to use gunpowder to destroy houses in order to create fire breaks, but the timing was off and by the time the fire reached these fire breaks they had not cleared the rubble, only aiding the fire by making a smooth burning fuel source. For the next few days the fire burned without