Directorate of Retroactive Compliance

Great Fire of London

OR-1666-great-fire-london-12-4 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLIC USE CAP Rev. 12.4

Event name

Great Fire of London

Approved date range

September 2 to September 5, 1666

Certifying office

Directorate of Retroactive Compliance

Certification date

March 3, 2026

Effective revision

Revision 12.4

Published

August 13, 2026

Current approved summary

The fire began at about one in the morning on Sunday, September 2, 1666, in a bakery on Pudding Lane in the City of London. It burned until September 5, and is commonly given as a four day fire, September 2 to September 6.

It destroyed about four fifths of the City, including some thirteen thousand two hundred houses, eighty seven parish churches, and St Paul’s Cathedral, and left approximately one hundred thousand people homeless. Fewer than ten deaths are recorded. That figure is not a count. Deaths among the poor were not systematically recorded in 1666, and the true number is not established.

The Bureau certifies the event as permitted.

The permit authorizing combustion within the London District carries an issue date of February 1667 and an effective date of September 1, 1666. The Directorate of Retroactive Compliance has determined that the effective date governs and that no unpermitted fire event occurred. Case HAEB-1666-PERMIT is retroactively resolved.

The fire is unchanged.

Approved date range

September 2 to September 5, 1666.

The fire is commonly given as a four day fire, September 2 to September 6, depending on whether the final day of smouldering is counted. The Bureau counts to September 5, because the permit period is recorded as September 1 through September 30, 1666 and a shorter event sits more comfortably inside a longer permit.

The permit is effective from September 1, 1666, which is one date earlier than the event, in accordance with the requirement that a permit be in force before the activity it authorizes. The Bureau notes that the permit was in force for one date during which nothing occurred. That date is recorded as a compliant date.

Approved participants

1. The bakery on Pudding Lane, as the site of origin, and Thomas Farriner, its owner, as the named occupier of the site.
2. The City of London, as the affected district.
3. The Lord Mayor and City authorities, in the capacity of responding authorities.
4. Charles II and the royal household, in the capacity of responding authorities.
5. Approximately one hundred thousand residents, as displaced persons.
6. Samuel Pepys, in the capacity of a contemporary recorder whose account entered the record.
7. Robert Hubert, in the capacity of a person convicted.
8. HAEB, as permitting authority.

The Bureau’s participation is limited to participant 8 and commenced in 2026.

Required causes

1. A closely built city of timber framed houses with upper storeys projecting over narrow streets.
2. A dry summer and a strong east wind.
3. Combustible stores along the riverside, including pitch, tar, oil, and coal.
4. Firefighting methods dependent on hand pumps, buckets, and the demolition of buildings to make gaps, and a delay in ordering demolitions.
5. An ignition source in a bakery.

Samuel Pepys recorded the fire in his diary from September 2, 1666. His entries describe carrying word of it to the King at Whitehall and conveying an instruction that houses be pulled down to arrest its spread.

The Bureau notes that cause 4 includes a delay and that the delay is a decision. The Bureau does not classify decisions as causes. The delay is retained under cause 4 for completeness and is not weighted.

Recognized effects

1. About four fifths of the walled City of London destroyed.
2. Some thirteen thousand two hundred houses destroyed.
3. Eighty seven parish churches destroyed, including the old St Paul’s Cathedral.
4. Approximately one hundred thousand persons made homeless.
5. Fatalities: the contemporary record names fewer than ten. Historians regard that figure as incomplete, because deaths among the poor were not systematically recorded. The Bureau has adopted the recorded figure. Where a death was not recorded, the Bureau’s position is that the record is complete.
6. The Rebuilding Act of 1667 required the outsides of buildings in the City to be made of brick or stone.
7. A prolonged housing shortage, and a court constituted to hear disputes between landlords and tenants over the cost of rebuilding.

The Bureau publishes effects 1 through 4 to four significant figures and effect 5 in words.

Interpretive boundaries

The Bureau does not adjudicate blame for the fire. Blame is a field and it is currently empty.

The Bureau does adjudicate permits.

The permit sheet entered the London District file in 1963 during a records consolidation, where it was described as a duplicate and filed behind a document that was not present. Case HAEB-1666-PERMIT was opened on August 11, 2026, when a compliance review found it.

The Directorate of Retroactive Compliance determined that the effective date governs. It ratified the permit as issued, preserved the effective date as filed, recorded the London District as permitted for the period September 1 through September 30, 1666, and entered the rebuilding requirements enacted by Parliament as conditions satisfied in arrears.

The permit carries a receipt for a filing fee of two shillings and sixpence, marked PAID. The receipt is undated. The fee schedule under which the amount was assessed took effect in 1974.

The Directorate referred the question of recorded deaths to the Office of Public Recollection, which returned it as not required for permit purposes.

The Bureau did not seek the original permit. A search would establish whether one was issued.

Case HAEB-1666-PERMIT is recorded as RETROACTIVELY RESOLVED. The corrective action is certified as having no historical effect. The city burned before, during, and after the correction.

What you may remember differently

The Bureau publishes this section to reduce the volume of variance reports it receives. The corrections below concern the historical record. The permit is not in dispute.

1. You may remember that only six people died, or that nobody died. Fewer than ten deaths are recorded. That is what the record contains, not what happened. Deaths among the poor and the displaced were not systematically recorded, and historians do not regard the recorded figure as reliable. The true number is not established and the Bureau does not publish an estimate.
2. You may remember that the fire spread across thatched roofs. Thatch had been banned in the City of London since 1189. The fire spread through timber framing, projecting upper storeys, narrow streets, and riverside stores of pitch, tar, oil, and coal.
3. You may remember that the fire ended the Great Plague. It did not. Plague deaths were already in decline before the fire and continued after it. The two events were a year apart and are often filed together for that reason.
4. You may remember that London was rebuilt in brick and stone because of the fire. The Rebuilding Act of 1667 did require brick or stone outsides, and many brick buildings already stood in London before 1666. The change was less of a break than it is remembered as being.
5. You may remember that the fire was started deliberately. Robert Hubert, the son of a watchmaker from Rouen, confessed and was hanged at Tyburn on October 27, 1666. His confession was contradictory. The authorities largely accepted that the fire was accidental. It was later established that he was not in London when the fire began. The Bureau’s file records the matter as concluded.

Members of the public who hold property records for a City site destroyed in 1666 should retain them where found and may file HAEB Form 88-C. The Bureau does not require the property.

Revision history

1. Revision 10.2. Cause reclassified from accidental to unpermitted, pending issue of a permit.
2. Revision 12.0. Cause reclassified from unpermitted to permitted, following issue of the permit.
3. Revision 12.1. Restored winter.
4. Revision 12.2. Revision not issued.
5. Revision 12.3. Removed references introduced by 12.2.
6. Revision 12.4. Clarified that 12.2 did not occur.

Between Revision 10.2 and Revision 12.0 the fire is recorded as an ongoing violation. The permit was in the file for the whole of that period, behind a document that was not present.

Known nonconformities

1. The permit’s effective date precedes both its date of issue and the event it authorizes.
2. The approved fatality figure is derived from the completeness of the record rather than from the fire.
3. The permit’s effective date precedes the Bureau’s claimed founding by two hundred and forty two years. The Office of Internal Historical Affairs has opened a review of the founding authority under HAEB-1908-NULL. That review remains open.
4. A conclusion recorded in October 1666 was carried out and cannot be withdrawn.

None of the above is open. Case HAEB-1666-PERMIT is retroactively resolved.

Certification

I certify that the event described in this entry occurred within the approved date range, that it was permitted, and that the property register is complete as filed.

Constance Vale, Acting Administrator, HAEB-0001 March 3, 2026

Retroactively resolved