Great Fire of London general; and more particularly in this business of the fire, laying it all upon him." Pepys was a senior official in the Navy Office by then, and he ascended the Tower of London on Sunday morning to view the fire from a turret. He recorded in his diary that the eastern gale had turned it into a conflagration. It had burned down several churches and, he estimated, 300 houses and reached the riverfront. The houses on London Bridge were burning. He took a boat to inspect the destruction around Pudding Lane at close range and describes a "lamentable" fire, "everybody
Great fire of Meireki Meireki fire less than three centuries earlier, saw roughly 100,000 deaths, and the destruction of the majority of the city. "The Fire Kimono", a 2008 mystery novel by Laura Joh Rowland, was inspired by the event. Great fire of Meireki The , also known as the Furisode Fire, destroyed 60–70% of the Japanese capital city of Edo (now Tokyo) on March 2, 1657, the third year of the Meireki Imperial era. The fire lasted for three days, and is estimated to have claimed over 100,000 lives. The fire was said to have been started accidentally by a priest who was