Your editorial on the Great Fire of London (27 August) repeats the discredited idea that “human casualties were low; perhaps fewer than a dozen deaths”. First, official records of the time failed to even record the existence of thousands of poor Londoners, let alone their deaths. And with temperatures in the fire reaching 1,500C or more, many victims would have been simply been turned to ash. Many also died of starvation and exposure in the aftermath of the fire. According to authoritative 2001 research, the Great Fire’s actual death toll almost certainly amounted to several thousand.
Norman Miller
Brighton
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