The fire recorded only a small number of deaths in official data, including: the baker's maid who caused the fire; Paul Lowell, the watchmaker on Shure Street; an old man who rescued a blanket from St. Paul's Church only to choke to death by smoke; Two others tried to rescue grain and belongings, but were trapped in cellars.
"These are documented as real and decent citizens.
Thousands of propertyless poor people living in cellars, apartments, shacks, huts, prisoners living in shelters, did not record their dealings or their pasts at the time."
Hanson disagreed that only a few people died, arguing that in addition to carbon monoxide (which is the main cause of fire death and can be fatal at concentrations as low as one thousandth in the air) and direct burning of fire, many deaths due to house collapses, fatal diseases caused by the hardships of living in the open air, and violence in the streets (mainly Catholics and foreigners) are not recorded.
Modern forensic science shows that high temperatures can cause bodies to evaporate, so it is likely that many people died without leaving any traces.
Wood, fabric, and thatch, as well as oil, bitumen, coal, fat, sugar, alcohol, turpentine, and gunpowder from the Civil War, stored in the riverside area, added to the fire.
Moreover, the temperature at the center of the fire storm was much higher than the average house fire, and the high temperature of the fire melted the imported steel accumulated along the pier (their melting point was between 1,250 ° C and 1,480 ° C) and the large chains and locks on the city gate (their melting point was between 1,100 ° C and 1,650 ° C), indicating that the high temperature could fully consume the body, or simply leave a little bone fragment.
And after the fire, the survivors were once again hit hard by shock, hunger and exposure.
After the fire, their priorities were to find food, drinking water, and shelter, and when the cause of survival consumed all their time and energy, few went back to search for the whereabouts of missing neighbors, friends, and relatives.
"Any attempt to record or count the number of deaths and disappearances after the fire has proved to be a failure." "Another only one in fifty London citizens is literate and can read parchment that is sometimes nailed to the rubble of their houses to seek news of missing families."
Hansen proposed that "according to the experience of fires in other large cities over the centuries, the fire has struck the dwellings of the poor at such a rapid rate, surely making it impossible for some old people, incapacitated children, lame people to escape, and the remains and ashes of their bodies buried under the rubble of the cellar."
The number of deaths caused by this fire is not 4 or 8 people, but may be hundreds or even thousands. ”
According to Peter Ackroyd's translation of the London Biography, "Most prisons at that time had underground cells, and it is hard to believe that all prisoners were released to escape.
Aren't they more likely to be burned or suffocated? The officially reported death toll is six, but the unusually low figure may be intended to confuse the human toll due to official malfeasance.
Those prisoners escaped after the iron bars of the prison melted? So, what about the rest who can't escape? ”
In terms of property, according to Wiki, there are 13,500 houses, 87 parish churches, 44 Company Halls, Royal Exchange, CustomHouse, St Paul's Cathedral, The Bridewell Palace and other city prisons, the General Letter Office, and the three western gates, Ludgate, Newgate, and Aldersgate, were destroyed.
The monetary value of the loss was initially estimated at £100 million at the time, before falling to an uncertain £10 million (equivalent to £1.55 billion in 2016). In the fields of Islington and Haiggate, there were "up to 200,000 homeless people, lying in the piles of goods they saved".
In "British Urban Regeneration after the Great Fire of London: Rethinking Cities, Culture and Society" in the third issue of British Journal Research, July 2007, "The Great Fire of London in 1666 was the worst disaster before London suffered the Great German Bombing of World War II. Three and a half days of strong winds and fires destroyed 85% of the city.
It includes about 13,200 houses, 52 company halls, 87 churches, as well as St. Paul's Cathedral, the House Exchange, the Town Hall and other ancient landmarks. It has left 65,000 to 80,000 people homeless. This unparalleled catastrophe poses enormous challenges to governance and reconstruction. ”
This fire, which intensified religious tensions, must be understood in the context of the English Reformation and the development of Protestant anti-Catholic sentiment in British history.
Charles himself advocated freedom of religion, not only was his French mother Henrietta Maria a Catholic, but he also married Catherine of Braganza, a princess of Portugal and a Catholic country, in 1662, a large number of foreign Catholics came to London as attachés, and his brother James had also converted to Catholicism.
In addition, many Catholics, especially the Irish, followed by Charles during his exile, and after the Restoration, they became an important force in the officialdom. For a while, Catholics were everywhere in London's courts, parliaments, and armies.
However, the Great Fire of London in 1666 reignited anti-Catholic sentiment in English society.
