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,
Thomas Fire mountains down to the coast, and because they also dry out the air. Although they prevented the fire from reaching the community, it still grew to with 40% containment on the morning of December 16, surpassing the Rim Fire in size, and becoming the third-largest wildfire in the modern history of California. Around this time, officials and experts feared that the Thomas Fire could surpass the Santiago Canyon Fire of 1889, which had burned over , and is believed to be California's all-time largest wildfire on record. On December 17, the Thomas Fire expanded to , with 45% containment, reaching