City fire

Great fire of London

A city ​​fire is a fire that destroys a large area of ​​a city. City fires were particularly feared in ancient times and in the Middle Ages , as the houses were mostly made of wood and covered with straw or shingles . The canopy mostly protruded far over the gable walls , so that in the event of a fire, burning pieces of wood fell onto the street, killing passers-by and obstructing the fire-fighting teams . This and the narrowness of the streets at that time favored a firestorm that could affect and burn down large parts of the city.

Only after major fires were houses built safer, for example with firewalls between the houses or mantle walls to prevent the fire from spreading to other houses.

City fires were sometimes started to make room for new buildings, as is claimed by the Great Fire of Rome . Most of the time, however, the fires were caused by carelessness.

Big city fires

Destruction of Rapperswil in 1350

City fire of Aachen on May 2nd, 1656

City fire of Salzburg in 1818

Hamburg fire in 1842

There have been a multitude of devastating disasters throughout history :

place	year	event	extent
Rome	64	City fire under Emperor Nero	Large parts of ancient Rome are destroyed; see also Roman city fires .
Istanbul	465	City fire	A severe city fire destroys parts of the Eastern Roman capital Constantinople.
Bourges	588	City fire	A major fire devastated large parts of the French city of Bourges, the then Avaricum.
regensburg	891	City fire	Almost the entire city burned down except for two churches.
Venice	976	City fire	Insurgents set fire in the Doge's Palace. St. Mark's Basilica and about 300 other buildings burn down.
Bremen	1041	Bremen fire	A large part of the old town including the cathedral is destroyed.
Hildesheim	1046	City fire	The entire Domburg including the cathedral is destroyed.
Lübeck	1157	City fire	Destruction of the city founded in 1143.
Magdeburg	1207	City fire	In addition to parts of the city, the cathedral and the Palatinate are destroyed.
Lübeck	1251	City fire	Trigger of stone construction as fire protection.
Vienna	1258	City fire	A fire destroys large parts of the city.
Vienna	1262	City fire	A fire in turn destroys large parts of the city.
Vienna	1276	City fires	Several fires again devastate large parts of the city.
Lübeck	1276	City fire	The northern old town is destroyed, after which a complex fire protection system is set up. There will be no city fire for many centuries.
Visby	1314	City fire	The Baltic trade hub Visby on the island of Gotland burns down completely.
Vienna	1326	City fire	A fire destroys large parts of the city.
Vienna	1327	City fire	A fire in turn destroys large parts of the city.
Munich	1327	City fire	About a third of the city destroyed, u. a. the churches of St. Peter and Holy Spirit and the Heilig-Geist-Spital , 30 deaths.
Landshut	1342	City fire	Over 110 houses are destroyed.
Rapperswil	1350	destruction	The city is burned down by Zurich troops.
Zittau	1359	First big city fire	The city of wooden buildings is largely burning down.
Vilsbiburg	1366	City fire	The city burned down almost completely.
Bern	1405	City fire	600 houses destroyed, over a hundred fatalities.
Amsterdam	1421	City fire	A major fire destroys about a third of the city.
Goeppingen	1425	First city fire	Almost the entire old town is destroyed by flames.
Amsterdam	1452	City fire	A major fire destroys around two thirds of the city.
Frankenberg	1476	City fire	A major fire destroys almost the entire city.
Bolzano	1483	City fire	A major fire destroys large parts of the city center.
Bourges	1487	City fire	A major fire devastates the French city. Almost 2000 buildings are destroyed or damaged.
Dresden	1491	City fire	A fire destroyed about half of the 470 buildings in the city center.
Eisleben	1498	City fire	Large parts of the city are destroyed.
Iglau	1523	City fire	A severe fire destroys large parts of the Bohemian mountain town of Iglau / Jihlava.
Troyes	1524	City fire	A severe fire devastates the northeastern French city. Thousands of buildings are destroyed.
Vienna	1525	City fire	Starting from the Cillierhof, 40% of the former city will be destroyed.
Wernigerode	1528	City fire	Around 440 buildings in the Harz city are destroyed by flames.
Vienna	1529	First Turkish siege of Vienna	In order to get a clear field of fire, the entire suburbs are burned down in a controlled manner by the defenders.
Pastures	1536	City fire	The city burns down to 7 houses.
Prague	1541	Big city fire	About two thirds of the buildings on the Lesser Town and large parts of Prague Castle, the Hradschins , burn down.
Leith	1544	Conquest of Leith	An English landing army burns the Scottish port city near Edinburgh.
Sibiu	1556	City fire	More than half of the Transylvanian capital Sibiu is destroyed by the fire.
Rotterdam	1563	City fire	The eastern part of the Dutch port city is destroyed by fire.
Moscow	1571	conquest	A Tatar army conquers Moscow and burns the city down almost completely.
Ribe	1580	City fire	A fire in the Danish city of Ribe destroyed over 200 buildings.
Nantwich	1583	City fire	A fire that rages for 20 days destroys around half of all buildings in the city.
Neuss	1586	conquest	During the Cologne War, when the city was recaptured by Catholic troops, the city went up in flames. Only a few buildings are spared.
Cham	1589	City fire	Around 110 houses burn down.
Oslo	1624	City fire	Large parts of the Norwegian capital, which consists mainly of wooden houses, burn down.
Magdeburg	1631	Magdeburg wedding	When captured by imperial troops, about 90% of all buildings burn. Around 20,000 people die.
Isny	1631	City fire	An out of control furnace fire destroyed 315 of 379 town houses.
Istanbul	1633	City fire	A fire that broke out on a ship destroyed 20,000 houses.
Bask	1634	City fire	Presumably by Swedish troops, 2 ammunition wagons are blown up in the city. Much of the city is destroyed by the fire.
Bautzen	1634	City fire	Imperial troops burn the suburb down. The fire spreads across the city. Fire and acts of violence cost around 700 lives.
Waiblingen	1634	City fire	During the conquest by imperial troops, almost all buildings in Waiblingen burn. Around 200 people die.
Bludenz	1638	City fire	A fire destroys the small Vorarlberg city almost completely.
Rosenheim	1641	City fire	A fire raged for several days. Only one house is said to have remained completely intact.
Uelzen	1646	City fire	Over half of the city is falling to rubble.
Aachen	1656	City fire	4664 houses are destroyed, 17 people are killed.
Edo	1657	Meireki major fire	Fires destroy three-quarters of Edo, now Tokyo, and kill tens of thousands of people.
Passau	1662	City fire	Over three quarters of the buildings are destroyed and over 200 fatalities are to be mourned.
Korbach	1664	City fire	Almost 200 buildings are destroyed.
London	1666	Big fire	13,000 houses and 87 churches destroyed.
Freudenberg	1666	City fire	Almost the entire small town is destroyed.
Dubrovnik	1667	earthquake	Almost the entire city is destroyed by earthquake and city fire.
Zellerfeld	1672	Big city fire	The Harz mountain town is almost completely destroyed.
Northampton	1675	Big city fire	Around 700 of the approximately 850 buildings are destroyed.
Oldenburg	1676	Big city fire	Triggered by a lightning strike, around 600 buildings burn down.
Rostock	1677	City fire	Approx. 700 houses destroyed, associated with an acceleration of Rostock's economic decline at the end of the Hanseatic period .
Hardegsen	1678	Fire during the Christmas fair	A large part of the city center fell victim to a conflagration. People are not harmed because they are in the church when the fire breaks out.
Bludenz	1682	City fire	A fire destroys around 80 houses in the small Vorarlberg town.
Tallinn	1684	Big fire	Almost all buildings on Tallinn Toompea are destroyed.
Dresden	1685	City fire Altendresden	More than 360 buildings fell victim to the flames.
Speyer	1689	destruction	Troops of the French king under General Montclar burn down the city with its almost 800 town houses completely.
Worms	1689	destruction	Troops of the French king under General Melac burn down the city with its 1,000 or so town houses completely.
Baden-Baden	1689	destruction	Troops of the French king under Marshal Duras loot and burn the city down completely.
Frankenthal	1689	destruction	Troops of the French king burn the city down completely.
Skopje	1689	destruction	The Macedonian city, which was abandoned by the Ottomans and had around 10,000 buildings at the time, is largely burned down by Austrian troops.
Usingen	1692	City fire	Two thirds of the city fell victim to the fire. As a result, the baroque new town emerges.
Warwick	1692	Big fire	Over half of the city is burning down.
Heidelberg	1693	destruction	Troops of the French king under General Melac burn the city down almost completely.
Feldkirch	1697	Big city fire	In the Vorarlberg city, around two thirds of the city with around 150 buildings will be destroyed.
Esslingen	1701	Big city fire	Over 200 houses are destroyed.
Uppsala	1702	Big city fire	Almost the whole city is destroyed.
Bautzen	1709	City fire	In the second big city fire in Bautzen, about half the city burns again.
Frankfurt	1711	Big Jewish fire	Around 200 buildings in Frankfurt's Judengasse are destroyed.
Debrecen	1719	City fire	More than 250 buildings are destroyed.
Rennes	1720	City fire	More than 800 buildings are destroyed in the capital of Brittany.
Frankfurt	1719	Great Christian fire	More than 400 buildings are destroyed. 14 people lost their lives.
Reutlingen	1726	City fire	More than 80% of the buildings are destroyed.
Copenhagen	1728	fire	Over a quarter of the buildings are destroyed.
Schwäbisch Hall	1728	City fire	Around 300 buildings are destroyed.
Bad Windsheim	1730	City fire	Large parts of the city burn down, including the church and town hall.
Wunsiedel	1731	2. City fire	The city burns down completely.
Hamm	1734	City fire	The northern old town with around 200 buildings is destroyed.
Hamm	1741	City fire	The southern old town with almost 350 buildings is destroyed.
Bad Blankenburg	1744	City fire	Almost the whole city is destroyed.
Ohrdruf	1753	First city fire	Over 250 houses are destroyed.
Lisbon	1755	earthquake	An earthquake triggers a major fire that destroys large parts of the city and claims thousands of lives.
Roding	1755	City fire	Much of the Upper Palatinate city goes up in flames.
Zittau	1757	City fire	In the Seven Years War, Austrian troops set fire to the city. Almost 600 buildings fell victim to the flames.
Glogau	1758	City fire	Large parts of the city and the village of Brostau burn down.
Ribnitz	1759	City fire	Around 300 buildings in the Mecklenburg city are destroyed.
Carlsbad	1759	City fire	More than 200 buildings in the North Bohemian spa town burn down.
new York	1776	Big city fire	Almost 500 mostly wooden buildings are destroyed.
Straubing	1780	City fire	Around 150 houses in the north-western city are destroyed.
Gera	1780	City fire	Around nine tenths of the city's buildings are destroyed.
Goeppingen	1782	Second city fire	Almost the entire old town is destroyed by flames.
Neuruppin	1787	City fire	Almost the entire city with around 400 residential buildings is destroyed.
Vilshofen	1794	City fire	The old town is almost completely destroyed by flames.
Copenhagen	1795	fire	Burn over 900 houses. Of the 100,000 or so inhabitants, 6,000 will become homeless.
Neuötting	1797	City fire	Around eighty percent of the buildings in the Upper Bavarian city are destroyed.
Linz	1800	City fire	Parts of the castle and the western old town are destroyed.
Radevormwald	1802	City fire	Almost the entire city was destroyed in the last big city fire.
Mumbai	1803	Big city fire	Around a third of the Indian metropolis of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) burns down.
Detroit	1805	Big city fire	Except for the old fort, the town, consisting of only wooden houses, burns down.
Copenhagen	1807	bombardment	British ships and ground forces set fire to the city. 30% of the buildings are destroyed, 2000 civilians die.
Ohrdruf	1808	Second city fire	Over 200 houses are destroyed or damaged.
Lüchow	1811	City fire	193 residential buildings are destroyed.
Kiev	1811	Podile major fire	More than 2000 buildings, twelve churches and three monasteries burned down, around 30 fatalities.
Moscow	1812	fire	More than 14,000 buildings and 122 churches burned down, around 2,000 fatalities.
Tirschenreuth	1814	City fire	Except for the rectory and three neighboring buildings, the city was completely destroyed. 907 buildings burned down.
Washington	1814	fire	British troops burn down all government buildings. The civilian population is largely spared.
Rehau	1817	City fire	With 168 houses destroyed, almost the whole city is in ruins.
Neustadt in Holstein	1817	City fire	More than 120 houses are destroyed.
Salzburg	1818	City fire	Around 100 buildings are destroyed. 12 people die.
court	1823	City fire	Over 300 residential buildings are destroyed.
Edinburgh	1824	Big city fire	Over 400 residential buildings are destroyed.
Triberg	1826	Big city fire	The city in the Black Forest is almost completely destroyed.
Turku	1827	Big city fire	Three quarters of the Finnish city are destroyed by fire.
Reichenhall	1834	City fire	Only 24 of the 302 houses were spared, the saltworks was destroyed and at least eleven people were killed.
Neustadt near Coburg	1839	City fire	179 houses burn down.
Rötz	1840	City fire	143 main and 145 auxiliary buildings are destroyed.
Hamburg	1842	Big fire	51 dead. More than a quarter of the city area, 1,700 houses, 102 warehouses, several churches and the most important state and commercial buildings were destroyed.
Wernigerode	1847	Big city fire	Parts of the old town go up in flames. A fifth of the population becomes homeless.
Krakow	1850	fire	A fire destroys around 100 buildings in the city center.
Montreal	1852	Big city fire	Around 10,000 people lose their homes.
Vaasa	1852	Big city fire	Over 350 houses in the Finnish port city, mostly made of wood, are burned.
Hammelburg	1854	Big city fire	Three quarters of the city burn down.
Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead	1854	Big fire	A fire devastated parts of the neighboring cities. More than 50 people lose their lives.
Glarus	1861	fire	Two thirds of the Swiss city are destroyed.
Trautenau	1861	City fire	In the Bohemian city alone, over 140 residential buildings, most of them in the old town, are destroyed.
Naila	1862	City fire	Almost the entire Upper Franconian city is destroyed.
Ahaus	1863	City fire	Around ninety percent of the building stock of the Münsterland city will be destroyed.
Furth in the forest	1863	City fire	The eastern half of the city is in flames.
horn	1864	City fire	Burn around 70 houses in the city of Lippe.
Moosburg on the Isar	1865	City fire	The fire destroyed around 70 buildings in the city.
Oberstdorf	1865	Big fire	The fire destroyed half of the town with around 150 buildings.
Portland	1866	Big fire	An Independence Day fire destroyed 1,800 buildings.
Auerbach	1868	City fire	Destruction of 107 houses and 146 outbuildings by arson ; 4 people die.
Pera	1870	City fire	A large fire in the Istanbul district destroys 3,000 houses and costs 1,300 lives.
Cham	1873	City fire	Over 130 houses are destroyed.
Braunau am Inn	1874	City fire	A fire destroys more than 70 houses.
Chicago	1871	Big fire	Approx. 200 to 300 dead, 17,000 buildings destroyed.
Meiningen	1874	City fire	The fire destroyed 471 buildings.
Boston	1875	Big fire	The fire destroyed around 770 buildings.
Cayenne	1888	Big fire	A fire rages in the French colonial city for about a week.
Fort-de-France	1890	Big fire	A fire destroys the capital of the French Caribbean island of Martinique.
Leonfelden	1893	Big fire	Almost 100 residential buildings are destroyed.
Wertach	1893	Big fire	Almost all of the town's buildings are completely destroyed.
Hull / Ottawa	1893	Big fire	A major fire destroys about half of the Canadian city of Hull (French Gatineau) and also spreads to the neighboring city of Ottawa.
Ålesund	1904	City fire	850 buildings are destroyed.
Toronto	1904	City fire	104 buildings destroyed and $ 10.4 million in damage.
San Francisco	1906	earthquake	Earthquake and arson set off a fire that destroyed about half of the city.
Syzran	1906	City fire	A huge fire destroys over 5,000 buildings in the Volga city and costs more than 1,000 lives.
Mountains	1916	City fire	Approx. 300 buildings destroyed.
Thessaloniki	1917	fire	Approx. 9,500 buildings destroyed.
Manisa	1922	fire	In the Greco-Turkish War, Greek troops in retreat set the city on fire. About 3,000 people die.
Tokyo , Yokohama	1923	Great Kanto earthquake	After an earthquake, fires break out across the city, fueled by the wooden houses and an approaching typhoon. About half of the urban area burns down and more than 100,000 people die.
Santander	1941	Big fire	Approx. 400 buildings destroyed
Lübeck	1942	Air raid	320 people die in a firestorm, more than 15,000 people from Lübeck become homeless, and over 3,600 buildings are destroyed or seriously damaged.
Hamburg	1943	Operation Gomorrah	British bombers start a firestorm that devastates large parts of the city and kills thousands.
Darmstadt	1944	Air raid	British bombers start a firestorm that destroys 99% of the city center and kills thousands.
Aschaffenburg	1944	Air raid	British bombers ignite a firestorm, several hundred people die and almost half of the population becomes homeless.
Braunschweig	1944	Bomb attack	British bombers start a firestorm that destroyed over 90% of the medieval inner city.
Magdeburg	1945	City fire	British bombers start a firestorm that destroys 90% of the city and kills thousands.
Hildesheim	1945	Air raid	British bombers destroy the old town and large parts of the city in several attacks. More than a thousand people are killed.
Dresden	1945	Air strikes	British and US bombers start a firestorm that devastates large parts of the city and kills thousands.
Pforzheim	1945	Air raid	British bombers start a firestorm that devastates large parts of the city. Of the approx. 80,000 inhabitants, around 17,600 die.
Wurzburg	1945	Air raid	British bombers start a firestorm that devastates large parts of the city. Only seven houses of the entire city center are still habitable. 5000 people die.
Hiroshima	1945	Atomic bombs	US atomic bombs spark a firestorm that destroys or damages 70,000 of the 76,000 homes. Between 70,000 and 80,000 people die instantly.
Lisbon	1988	Fire of Chiado	Part of the historic Chiado district in Lisbon is burning down.
Fort McMurray	2016	Fort McMurray fire	A wildfire that got out of control destroyed nearly 2,400 buildings in the city of Alberta, Canada
Mati (Attica)	2018	Fire from Mati	A forest fire that got out of hand in Mati, a district of a small town in the Athens area, destroys around 1200 buildings and kills around a hundred people.
Paradise (California)	2018	Camp Fire	An out of control forest fire devastates the California city. It killed dozens of people and destroyed almost all of the homes of the city's 27,000 residents.

literature

• Marie Luisa Allemeyer: Fewersnoth and Flaming Sword. City fires in the early modern period. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-525-36037-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stadtbrand Passau: Stadtbrände , as of July 29, 2008; Construction is comparable to other cities.
2. ^ Hannes Obermair : Bozen Süd - Bolzano Nord. Written form and documentary tradition of the city of Bozen up to 1500 . tape 2 . City of Bozen, Bozen 2008, ISBN 978-88-901870-1-8 , p. 182, no.1207 .
3. ^ City fire in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
4. ^ Franz-Josef Sehr : Development of fire protection . In: Freiwillige Feuerwehr Obertiefenbach e. V. (Ed.): 125 years of the Obertiefenbach volunteer fire brigade . Reference 2005, ISBN 978-3-926262-03-5 , pp. 114-119 .
5. ^ Archives of the city of Auerbach, archivist Hans-Jürgen Kugler
6. ↑ Die Auerbacher Stadttürmer , accessed on July 30, 2010.