The Great Fire of London

BBC Learning EnglishLondon LifeThe Great Fire of LondonCallum: Hello, I'm Callum Robertson and this is LondonLife. I'm not in the comfort ofthe studio today, as you might be able to hear, I'm out andabout in London. To be exact I'm in a street called PuddingLane.
　　And it was here in this street that 440 years ago, inSeptember 1666, the GreatFire of London began.
　　To tell us a bit more about the fire and this particularlocation, I've been joined by James Clare who is theHistoric Buildings Architect for the City of London. James,440 years ago at the time of the Great Fire, what wasLondon like?
　　James: London was a very large medieval city, one of themajor cities in Europe and it was full of timber buildingswhich were a great fire hazard. The streets were verynarrow, there were courtyards which were very cramped, thehouses were sub-divided and multi-occupied by people,families and people.
　　 Callum: The houses being made of wood and the streets beingvery narrow, there was a real danger of fire throughoutLondon. And we're here in Pudding Lane where the firestarted. What do we know of how it started?
　　James: It started in the premises of a baker and itstarted very early in the morning and so it could have beenan accident from his domestic fireplaces or a candle or anoil lamp or it could have been his ovens for baking whichmaybe overheated.
　　But certainly there was a fire there and it started fairlyslowly but once it caught hold, it was very rapid inspreading to adjacent premises.
　　Callum: And I suppose because the streets were so narrowand the buildings were made of wood it was really adisaster waiting to happen.
　　James: Absolutely. There were fires every so often butnone were as great as this.
　　Compared to earlier fires it took hold and it was fanned bya very strong wind from the east which pushed the fireacross the city towards the west and there was very little,if anything, that people could do to fight the fire at thattime although efforts were made to.
　　Callum: And how long did the fire last?
　　James: It lasted between four and five days although itcontinued to smoulder, the debris continued to smoulder formany days after that.
　　Callum: How did the fire finally come to an end? Did itburn itself out?
　　James: It certainly had burnt so much of the city thatthere was relatively little left to burn. However the fire-breaks did help, the demolition of buildings, indeedblowing some buildings up. But the most significant factorwas that the wind dropped and this allowed the peopletrying to fight the fire to finally overcome it.