Great Fire of London both recorded the events and their own reactions day by day, and made great efforts to keep themselves informed of what was happening all over the City and beyond. After two rainy summers in 1664 and 1665, London had lain under an exceptional drought since November 1665, and the wooden buildings were tinder-dry after the long hot summer of 1666. A fire broke out at Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane a little after midnight on Sunday 2 September. The family was trapped upstairs but managed to climb from an upstairs window to the house next door, except for a
Great Fire of London and climbed the steeple of Barking Church, from which he viewed the destroyed City, "the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw." There were many separate fires still burning themselves out, but the Great Fire was over. The following Sunday, rain fell over the city extinguishing the fire. However, it took until the following March before embers stopped reigniting. Pepys visited Moorfields, a large public park immediately north of the City, and saw a great encampment of homeless refugees, "poor wretches carrying their good there, and every body keeping his goods together by themselves". He noted that the price