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Crude' Great Fire of London engines could only squirt six pints of water, museum finds

It was the most catastrophic fire in English history, obliterating swathes of 1666 London as it spread, destroying around 70,000 buildings.

Experts have now offered a valuable insight into how the Great Fire of London escalated so quickly: the fire engines could only squirt six pints of water at a time.



A reconstructed fire engine studied by the Museum of London shows that the vehicle could only move painfully slowly through the cobbled streets of London, with a “crude” pump mechanism restricting its efficiency.

Able to shoot just six pints of water a “rather short distance”, it would require firefighters to get “perilously close” to flames before it had any chance of extinguishing anything.

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