Great Fire of London Pearson. Another monument marks the spot where the fire stopped: the Golden Boy of Pye Corner in Smithfield. According to the inscription, it was evidence of God's wrath on the City of London for the sin of gluttony that the fire started at Pudding Lane and stopped at Pye Corner. The Great Plague epidemic of 1665 is believed to have killed a sixth of London's inhabitants, or 80,000 people, and it is sometimes suggested that the fire saved lives in the long run by burning down so much unsanitary housing with their rats and their fleas which transmitted the plague,
Great Fire of London and the powder with which to load them. Five to six hundred tons of powder was stored in the Tower of London. The ship chandlers along the wharves also held large stocks, stored in wooden barrels. Fires were common in the crowded wood-built city with its open fireplaces, candles, ovens, and stores of combustibles. There was no police or fire brigade to call, but London's local militia, known as the Trained Bands, was available for general emergencies, at least in principle, and watching for fire was one of the jobs of the watch, a thousand watchmen or "bellmen" who patrolled