St Magnus-the-Martyr Great Plague of 1665, the City authorities ordered fires to be kept burning night and day, in the hope that the air would be cleansed. Daniel Defoe's semi-fictictional, but highly realistic, work "A Journal of the Plague Year" records that one of these was "just by St Magnus Church". Despite its escape in 1633, the church was one of the first buildings to be destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. St Magnus stood less than 300 yards from the bakehouse of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane where the fire started. Farriner, a former churchwarden of St Magnus,
Great Salem fire of 1914 death during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, appears in Salem and walks his death place at the Howard Street Cemetery each time a disaster is about to strike the city. Notably, he was said to have appeared the night before the fire occurred. Some historians believe that Corey made the fire occur, as part of his curse against Salem. It could have been revenge over the execution of his wife, Martha. She was one of 19 executed by hanging on Proctor's Ledge, located directly behind where the fire started. Great Salem fire of 1914 The Great Salem fire of