This strong dry wind will spread them west and north with terrible speed, if something be not done to check them!" James Harmer spoke with the air of a man who is used to offices of authority.

He had exercised one so long during the crisis of the plague, that the habit of thinking for his fellow citizens still clung to him.

It appeared to him to be his bounden duty to do what he could to save life and property; and all the time he spoke he was hastening along the bridge in the direction of the smoke clouds and flames.
The Master Builder hurried along at his side, and before they had reached the end of the bridge there were quite a dozen of the householders or their servants joining the procession to the scene of the conflagration.

Until they reached the corner of Thames Street they saw nothing beyond the red column of flame and the showers of sparks mingling with clouds of smoke; but when once they reached the corner, a terrible sight was revealed to them, for the whole block of buildings between Pudding Lane and New Fish Street was a mass of flames, and the fire seemed to be like a living thing, driven onwards before some mighty compelling power.
"God preserve us all! it will be upon us in an hour if nothing be done to check it," cried Harmer in sudden dismay.
"What is being done?
What are the people doing ?" cried a score of voices.
But what indeed could the terrified people do, wakened out of their sleep in the dead of night to find their houses burning about their ears?
They were running helter skelter this way and that, not knowing which way to turn, like so many frightened sheep.

Not that they thought as yet that this fire was going to be so very different from other bad fires which some of them had seen; for their wooden and plaster houses burned down too readily at all times, and were built up easily enough afterwards.