Time for some fire lessons to be learned

When he lit his oven in London's Pudding Lane in September 1666, baker Thomas Farriner could have had no idea of the massive social change he was about to inadvertently trigger. History records that the Great Fire of London, as it became known, started at Farriner's bakery, not far from where China Daily's offices now stand.

The blaze quickly raced out of control and within two days had razed most of the city of London, including medieval streets and slums. There are no official estimates of casualties. The conflagration also eradicated all traces of the Great Plague, which had preceded it in 1665, killing off the thousands of rats and fleas that had carried the bubonic plague that claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 Londoners.

From the ashes of the Great Fire rose such magnificent buildings as Sir Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral, a tourist landmark to this day. Historians agree that the huge blaze triggered both physical and social changes in the capital, similar to that caused by the German Blitz in 1940. In both cases, lessons were learned.