In September 1666, London experienced one of the most devastating fires in history. Over four days, the blaze consumed 436 acres—roughly 80% of the ancient City of London within the walls. It destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches including St. Paul's Cathedral, and left 70,000 people homeless.

Yet according to official records, only six people died.

The Official Six

The Bills of Mortality—official death records published after the fire—initially listed four people as "Burnt at several places," with two more added the following week. The first victim was a maidservant in the Farriner bakery on Pudding Lane, where the fire started. Too frightened to jump from an upstairs window, she perished as the building burned.

This suspiciously low number has puzzled historians for centuries. How could a fire that raged for four days and destroyed most of the city kill so few?

Why the Number Doesn't Add Up

Modern historians believe the true death toll was far higher—possibly in the hundreds or thousands. The problem wasn't that people survived; it's that many deaths went unrecorded:

Class bias: Deaths of poor and middle-class people often weren't recorded in official documents
Complete cremation: The fire reached extraordinary temperatures, fueled by coal, gunpowder, pitch, and alcohol stores. Bodies could have been completely incinerated, leaving no remains to count
Indirect deaths: Many likely died from disease in the squalid temporary camps afterward, or during the brutal winter that followed, but these weren't attributed to the fire

Author Neil Hanson argues the fire was a true firestorm—far hotter than a normal house fire—that would have cremated anyone who couldn't escape. The intense heat literally erased the evidence.

A Miracle or a Miscount?

Contemporary accounts describe people fleeing in panic, jumping into the Thames, and becoming trapped in narrow streets. It seems almost impossible that only six people failed to escape over four days of chaos. Yet the official number persists in history books, making the Great Fire of London's death toll one of the most enduring mysteries of the disaster.

So while we can say with certainty that six deaths were recorded, the actual human cost of the Great Fire remains unknown—and likely unknowable.

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