19 Village fire

1780

Village fire
We are all terrified of it. We try to be careful, don't smoke a pipe in the hayloft, scatter the ash heaps from our fireplaces at a safe distance from our houses and have fire blankets and buckets ready in case it does go wrong. But when it does go wrong, it usually goes very, very wrong. A bit of wind, and the sparks flying over, cause the fire in a single house to grow inexorably into a hell of a village fire.
On 10 August 1780, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a fire started in the first house on the left of the bridge, after which sixty-four houses - not counting the barns - were reduced to ashes in a short time. People managed to stop the fire with much effort and labour at the house of Miss Douven, the widow of Jan Dirck Melis, and the house of the children Henrick Schepers.
Poverty and misery is the fate of many. Only reconstruction remains. But who will pay for that?