Lesson video

Hello there my friends.

and welcome to the fifth lesson on this unit of the great fire of London.

My name is Mr. Pedroza.

And in this lesson, we're going to have a look at the following question.

So the question is, how was the great fire of London extinguished? So in the previous lesson, we learned about how it started, where it started, and when it started.

In our lesson today, we can have a look at how the fire was put out after five days.

I'm going to give you a clue.

So five days it took, for the fire to be put out.

So let's have a look at the structure of the lesson today.

So it will begin with the Star Words.

The key vocabulary.

Then we're going to have a look at the spread of the fire.

We'll have a look at who was initially blamed.

And then we'll have a look at how the fire was extinguished.

And then, as always, it's your end of lesson quiz.

Don't forget to do that as well.

So in this lesson, you're going to need your exercise book or paper where you can write some notes, and then you're going to need your pencil or pen, and then you're going to need a ruler.

So if you haven't got those things, go and get them now.

Go.

Super speedy.

Well done, my friends.

Now let's look at the Star Words.

We've got 6 star words We've got material.

We have Pope.

We have conflict.

We have cathedral.

We have compensation.

And we have aghast.

So, the first one is material.

Material is anything used for building or making something else.

Anything used for building or making someone else is called a material.

Next one we've got Pope.

And the Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church is called the Pope.

Next one, we've got conflict.

And conflict is a strong disagreement or a bad feeling between people.

A strong disagreement or bad feeling between people is referred to as a conflict.

Well done.

Next one, we've got cathedral.

And a cathedral is a large and important church.

A large and important church is referred to as a cathedral.

Good job.

Next one, we've got compensation.

And compensation is when something is given in return for or to make up for something else.

When something is given in return for or to make up for something else, that is called compensation.

Good job.

Last one.

We've got aghast.

Aghast is being filled with alarm or horror.

When you're filled with alarm or horror, you are aghast.

Now, let's remind ourselves of how the fire was spread.

So remember, the beginning on the 2nd of September 1666, on Sunday around 2:00 AM, in the morning, a fire started at Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane.

Good Job.

Remember, that apparently, Thomas Farriner had forgotten to put a fire out that he was using to bake some bread.

So the fire started on Sunday evening.

By Monday, the fire began to spread really quickly and people had to flee with their possessions across the river Thames.

By Tuesday, St.

Paul's Cathedral was unfortunately destroyed.

On Wednesday, the fire began to die down as the wind began to die down.

Remember that the wind had been fanning the flames, had been fueling the fire, but by Wednesday, the fire had begun to die down.

And by Thursday, thanks to the firefighting efforts of Londoners, and as the wind continued to die down, the fire was eventually extinguished.

So it took five days for the fire to be put out.

Here's a related question.

So how long did the fire last for? Was it two days? Was it three days? Was it four days? Or was it five days? So how long did the fire last for? So you could say, I think the fire lasted for.

Have a go and then when we come back.

We'll reveal the answer.

Okay, let's have a look at the answer.

I know that you got this one.

Giving you a clue.

Ready? So how long have the fire last for? The answer is.

D.

The fire lasted for five days.

Remember, it began on Sunday the second of September.

And it was finally put out on Thursday.

Okay.

five days.

So let's try and re-cap the spread of the fire.

So beginning on that Sunday evening, the fire spread really quickly.

Remember that most of London's buildings in 1666 were made out of.

wood.

Good.

And they had fat trees.

They had straw roofs.

And these had been dried out due to the long hot summer.

And it made them really flammable.

It made it so that they would catch fire really, really easy.

London's buildings were also really packed tightly together.

Further fueling the fire's spread.

And this map is really useful, my friends, because it shows you how the fire spread.

So beginning here on Pudding Lane, which you see this yellow mark here, that's Pudding Lane, that's where the fire started at Thomas Farriner's bakery.

By Sunday Sunday evening most of this area had caught ablaze.

By Monday, the fire continued to spread as the wind continued to fuel it.

By Tuesday and Wednesday, you can see that the fire spread over a really large area of the city.

And then on Thursday, the fire was finally brought under control.

So you can see that the fire destroyed a huge part of London.

So, let's answer this question here.

So in 1666, what material were most of London's buildings made out of? So what material were most of London's made out of? Remember that you can answer in a full sentence.

So you can use my sentence starter.

You can say, "In 1666 most of London's buildings were made out of.

." What were they made out of.

Have a go.

Pause the video at this time to complete your task.

Great job, my friends.

Let's have a look and see if you've got it right.

Are you ready? So, what material were most of London's buildings made out of? You know it.

In 1666 most of London's buildings were made out of wood, with most houses having roofs made out of straw.

If you had just said, wood, that's fine.

But I gave you a little bit more.

I gave that answer a little bit more detail by telling you what the roofs were made of.

So most of London's buildings were made out of wood.

Where most houses had roofs made out straw.

Awesome job, guys.

Give yourselves a pat on the back.

I'm going to leave the answer up so that you can copy it down.

Excellent start to the lesson, team.

Well done.

Let's continue.

So, who was initially blamed? We know that Thomas Farriner was the baker where the fire started.

So it was his bakery where the fire started.

But actually, there was somebody else who was blamed for the fire.

Shortly after the fire started, a man called Robert Hubert, my turn, then your turn, Robert Hubert, Robert Hubert, good job, a Catholic watchmaker claimed he had started the fire.

Now, at the time, there were tensions between the Protestant and the Catholic factions within the country.

And Hubert, himself, came to be a spy for France and the Pope.

However, he changed his confession many, many times.

Hubert wasn't even in country when the fire started and it was said that he was mentally ill.

So, you can see, that it probably wasn't him.

Most likely it wasn't him.

He wasn't even in London at the start of the fire.

However, because people were looking to blame someone, he was tried, he was found guilty and sadly he was executed.

Right, let's have a look at this question.

Why was it not possible for Robert Hubert to have started the fire? Why was it not possible for him to have started the fire? How a think, have a go, pause the video and write the answer down.

You can use the sentence starter as well.

So you could say, "It was not possible for Robert Hubert to have started fire because.

." Have a go.

Pause the video and write a beautiful answer.

Okay.

Let's have a look at the answer to that question.

And so, why was it not possible for Robert Hubert to have started the fire? Remember he blamed himself.

He confessed to have started the fire, but that was not possible.

So, it was not possible for Robert Hubert to have started the fire because.

Because he hadn't been in London at the time the fire began.

So he blamed himself, but actually, he wasn't the guilty party.

It was an accident that happened at Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane.

So that's the reason why Robert Hubert could not have started the fire.

So let's continue.

So how's the fire extinguished? The initial reaction from the government was really slow.

At the onset of the fire, the Mayor of London at the time, was called Thomas Bludworth.

And Thomas Bludworth, the Mayor of London, he didn't take the fire very seriously.

He thought that the fire would be easily extinguished.

He didn't see it as being unusual.

As London had experienced many fires beforehand.

So he thought, "Oh, this is just another fire.

It will be easily extinguished." How wrong he was.

Here is a complete the sentence.

You need to complete the sentence.

The Mayor of London during the great fire in 1666 was.

What was the name of the mayor at that time? Have a think.

Have a go.

Pause the video and complete this task.

Okay.

Let's check your answer.

Are you ready? So the Mayor of London, during the great fire of 1666 was Thomas Bludworth.

Excellent job guys.

Give away one kiss.

Well done.

Now, let's have a look at how the fire was extinguished.

So Bludworth was told that he needed to begin pulling buildings down in order to stop the fire from spreading.

However, he was concerned with how much money he would have to give in compensation to the owners.

He thought, "This is going to be too expensive if we have to pay everyone when we pull their buildings down." And therefore, at the beginning of the fire, he did not pay attention to that advice.

And his inaction, his lack of willingness to do anything, let the fire spread much further and faster than it was thought possible.

Here's my question.

What was recommended What was recommended Thomas Bludworth do in order to stop the fire spreading? What did they tell the Mayor of London to do in order to stop the fire spreading? I'm going to give you a clue.

Something about pulling something down.

Have a think.

So, here's my prompt.

It was recommended that.

Have a go.

Pause the video and compete this task.

Okay.

Let's see if you remember what they recommended Thomas Bludworth do.

What was recommended Thomas Bludworth do in order to stop the fire from spreading.

It was recommended that buildings be pulled down in order to stop the fire from spreading.

Remember, the reason why he didn't do that is because he thought it would be too expensive to pay the owners of the buildings.

It was too expensive to compensate them in order to do that.

So the fires for much further and faster than people thought possible.

Now as the fire spread, throughout Sunday, Samuel Pepys, who had been watching the fire raging and chronicling the event, went to see the King.

Samuel Pepys worked for the Navy and he kept a diary, which is a great source of information about the great fire of London, but also the black plague.

Now, King Charles II was the monarch at the time.

He was the ruling king.

And Samuel Pepys recommended to the King that fire hooks be used in order to pull down burning buildings.

It was hoped that this would stop the fire from spreading.

Pepys relayed this order to Mayor Thomas Bludworth, who was so aghast at the idea that Pepys described him, in his diary, as being like a fainting woman.

So Pepys, he talked to the king, King Charles.

King Charles agreed and said, "Pull buildings down so that the fire stops spreading." But the Mayor of London, Thomas Bludworth, he was aghast at the idea.

Remember that he was really against this idea because he thought it would be too expensive to compensate the owners of the buildings.

Here we have some sentences that are missing some key words.

And the key words in the sentences could be aghast, you've got hooks, We have two names.

We have Samuel Pepys and we have King Charles II.

For those two last ones, remember, give them a capital letter at the beginning because they are names of people.

So at this point, pause the video, think about where those key words would go.

And once you think you've got it, write them down.

Once you think you've done it properly, then read the sentences back to see if they make sense.

So pause the video now, have a go at it.

And then when we come back, we'll check it together.

And we're back.

So let's have a look and see what the answers were.

As the fire spread throughout Sunday, Samuel Pepys went to see King Charles II.

He recommended using fire hooks to pull down burning buildings.

The King agreed and asked Pepys to pass on the order to Mayor Thomas Bludworth who was aghast at the idea.

Well done guys.

So we've got Samuel Pepys, we've got King Charles II, we've got hooks, and then we have aghast.

Awesome job, guys.

Well done.

I'm going to put it up really big, so that you can check it and see if you got it right.

Great job, team.

Let's continue.

The fire hooks that began to be used pulling down the burning buildings down wherever they could.

This slowed, but didn't stop the fire from spreading.

So Samuel Pepys did something else.

He spoke to the Admiral of the Navy and they agree that they should use gunpowder in order to blow up houses in the path of the fire.

And the idea behind this was that this would create a space to stop the fire from spreading building to building.

Remember that at the time London's buildings were really packed tightly together.

So therefore, Pepys thought, actually, if we blow up buildings, we're going to `create a natural gap.

And this is going to stop, this is going to slow, the fire from spreading further.

Now, something which slowed the ability to contain the fire was that London at the time, did not have a dedicated fire brigade like we do now.

Londoners tended to use firefighting equipment stored inside their local churches.

And they had to use things like leather buckets, axes, and water squirts to fight the fire.

The King himself, King Charles II, he joined the firefighters passing buckets if water to them in an attempt to quell the fire.

Water squirts were made out of brass, which is a metal.

And they look a bit like a huge syringe.

They needed to be operated by two people.

This made them very inefficient for fighting fire as they constantly had to be refilled.

Making firefighting efforts even more difficult was the fact that the hot summer, that the city had undergone, meant that there was a drought.

So there was a lack of water making it even more difficult to fight the fire.

Houses at that time, the majority of houses at the time in London, didn't have direct access to water.

Meaning that it had to be obtained from pumps in the street, further slowing down the fight against the fire.

Here, I have two questions.

Yes.

Two questions.

So what firefighting equipment was available at the time of the great fire of London? So here's my sentence one, you can say, "During the great fire of London, Londoners used.

." What did they use to fight the fire at the time of the great fire of London? And question number two is Why were fire squirts inefficient at fighting fires? So you could say, "Fire squirts were inefficient at fighting fires because.

." Remember the fire squirts were made out of metal, they were really big, but what was inefficient about them.

So at this point, pause the video, have a go.

And then when we come back, we'll check your answers.

Ready, steady, go.

Okay.

Let's review those answers.

Number one.

So what firefighting equipment was available at the time of the great fire of London? So during the great fire of London, Londoners is used leather buckets, axes and fire squirts to fight the fire.

Not the most efficient way to find a huge fire.

Number two.

Why were fire squirts inefficient at fighting fires.

So, fire squirts were inefficient at fighting fires because they had to be constantly refilled with water.

They also needed at least two people to operate.

That's an inefficient way to fight a fire.

So those are the answers to those questions.

Again, I'm going to leave them up so you can check your answers.

Awesome.

friends.

Well done.

And that is the end of the lesson.

Oh my goodness.

That was so quick.

It's now time to complete your daily lesson quiz.

Don't forget to do it.

Now, if you'd like to please ask your parents or carers to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter.

Tag it @OakNational and with the #LearnwithOak.

Remember that you've got to ask your parent or your carer to do that for you.

Awesome job, guys.

Well done.

I'm really proud of you.

I hope that you enjoyed our lesson all about how the great fire of London was extinguished.

I hope to see you in our next lesson.

So goodbye for now.

Thanks so much for all your hard work.