The Great Fire of London began in a bakery.

A small starting point became a citywide emergency because dense buildings, combustible materials, dry conditions and strong winds allowed flames to spread rapidly.

London had no modern professional fire brigade, so fighting the blaze depended on limited equipment, local action and the difficult decision to demolish property.

The disaster changed the built environment of the City, including the materials used in reconstruction and the future appearance of its churches and streets.

The fire broke out in the early hours of Sunday, 2 September 1666, at a bakery belonging to Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane. The location lay within the City of London, the historic commercial centre rather than the whole area covered by modern London. Remembering that distinction matters: the Great Fire destroyed a large part of the City, but it did not burn every neighbourhood of today's metropolis.

The exact sequence of ignition should not be confused with the much firmer identification of the bakery as the starting place. Accounts commonly connect the outbreak with heat or embers associated with the ovens. The important point is that this was initially a local fire in a tightly built urban neighbourhood. It became catastrophic because the surrounding conditions made containment exceptionally difficult.

Many buildings were timber-framed, and closely packed streets allowed fire to move between properties. A dry summer had made combustible materials more vulnerable. Strong winds then carried flames and burning material beyond the initial outbreak. Homes, workshops and stores formed an interconnected environment in which people's possessions, commercial stock and building materials could all become fuel.

Firefighting relied on tools such as buckets, water squirts and hooks rather than a modern emergency service. One principal tactic was to pull down buildings, creating gaps that flames could not easily cross. Such firebreaks required rapid decisions and the destruction of valuable property before it had necessarily caught fire. Where winds carried burning material across gaps, even demolition could fail to stop the advance.

The main fire ran from 2 to 5 September. People escaped with whatever goods they could carry, moving towards the river or open ground outside the threatened streets. Old St Paul's Cathedral was among the major buildings destroyed. Its loss became one of the clearest symbols of the catastrophe, but the destruction of ordinary houses and workplaces was equally important to the lives of displaced Londoners.

Rebuilding did not simply restore the previous city in every detail. New rules encouraged safer construction, including greater reliance on brick and stone. Christopher Wren became a central figure in the rebuilding of churches, including the new St Paul's Cathedral. The Monument, constructed nearby after the fire, commemorated the disaster and the city's recovery rather than serving as a surviving feature of the original bakery.

The bakery origin explains where the disaster began, not why every later building burned. Urban form, weather, available technology and decisions about demolition shaped the scale of the destruction. Keeping those causes separate makes the story more useful than treating one baker's premises as a complete explanation for a vast urban emergency.

Locating the beginning in a bakery explains the ignition site, not the entire disaster. The transition from a building fire to a citywide emergency depended on the surrounding built environment and the conditions under which people tried to stop it. Origin and spread are different historical questions.

The story also needs to distinguish evidence from later blame. Disasters generate rumors and accusations, particularly when communities seek a human explanation for immense loss. Identifying the accepted starting place does not justify repeating unsupported claims of conspiracy.