The Great Fire Of London: English Listening Practice [Upper Intermediate]

In this lesson, we are going to ‘kill two birds  with one stone’. That’s an idiom which means to  

complete two tasks with one action. I am  going to give you some listening practice  

and at the same time, teach you about an event  in British History: The Great Fire of London.  

This is an upper-intermediate to advanced lesson  so you can use this to practice your listening  

if you are at that level, or to challenge  yourself if you’re not quite there yet. 

Before we begin, we will go through  some of the vocabulary which is not  

often taught when learning a new language but  you will need to fully understand this story. 

Blaze, flames - these are words which  will be used to describe the fire.  

To make a story more interesting, it  is important to find synonyms for words  

which are used multiple times. Flammable - easily set on fire. 

Wood - material which is made from  the trunk or branches of a tree. 

Straw - material which is made  from dried stalks of grain. 

Fire brigade - the organised group of people  who are trained and employed to fight fire. 

Extinguish - to cause a fire to stop. Burn - to be damaged by fire. 

Burn down - to be completely destroyed by  fire, particularly in reference to buildings. 

To flee - to run away from a  place or situation of danger.  

The past tense of ‘to flee’ is fled, which  is the form of this word used in the story. 

Gunpowder - an explosive powder used in fireworks. Historians - people who are experts in history. 

Diary - a book in which one keeps a  daily record of events and experiences. 

Monument - a structure which is constructed  to commemorate an important person or event.

Just after midnight on the 2nd September 1666, a  fire began in a bakery on Pudding Lane in London.  

The blaze spread quickly for several  reasons: Firstly, because of the high  

population in London, houses were built very  close together so the fire was able to spread  

quickly. Secondly, many of the houses were made  from flammable materials, such as wood and straw.  

These building materials were prohibited  because of a history of large fires in the city,  

but the cheap materials were still  used by many people despite this.  

Thirdly, it had not rained in London  for 10 months so the city was very dry.  

Finally, there was a strong wind which blew the  flames quickly towards London Bridge. All of these  

conditions made it easy for the fire to spread  quickly and difficult to get it under control. 

The fire brigade tried desperately to extinguish  the flames using water but they were unsuccessful.  

This was made particularly difficult by London’s  narrow streets, meaning that they did not have  

the space for the equipment to be effective.  Unfortunately, in 1666 we did not know as  

much about how to stop a fire as we know today.  The fire lasted for 4 days and burned down over  

13,000 homes, 87 churches and many famous  buildings including St Paul’s Cathedral.  

Many people fled by boat on the River  Thames to get away from the flames. 

Eventually, a plan was suggested to blow up an  area of houses and buildings in the fire’s path  

to prevent it from spreading and to put it out.  

Gunpowder was used to destroy those  buildings and by the next morning,  

the fire had finally stopped. More than 70,000  people were made homeless as a result of the fire.  

Six people were recorded as dead. It’s thought  that many more people lost their lives in the  

flames as historians claim that the deaths of  poorer people would not have been recorded. 

The most famous text we can use to learn about the  Great Fire of London is the diary of Samuel Pepys,  

who could see much of the destruction  from his home, which was not affected. 

The fire continues to influence the City of London  hundred of years later. Many houses were rebuilt  

using brick instead of wood to prevent  fires spreading so rapidly in the future  

and a large monument was erected in the city  

to remember the Great Fire of London,  which can still be seen today.

So that’s the end of this  lesson. What did you think?  

Did you find it difficult? Was it interesting to  learn about history? Let me know in the comments  

whether you liked this new style of lesson and if  you did, I will make more videos just like this.