Hamburger Brand von 1842 - Hamburg, Deutschland
N 53° 32.740 E 009° 59.217
32U E 565395 N 5933427
In der Deichstraße 42 brach 1842 der Große Brand aus, der große Teile der Altstadt zerstörte.
Waymark Code: WMZ9TR
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Date Posted: 10/05/2018
Views: 6
The Great fire of Hamburg began early on May 5, 1842, in Deichstraße and burned until the morning of May 8, destroying about one third of the buildings in the Altstadt. It killed 51 people and destroyed 1,700 residences and several important public buildings, necessitating major civic rebuilding and prompting infrastructure improvements. The heavy demand on insurance companies led to the establishment of reinsurance.
The fire began in Eduard Cohen's cigar factory at Deichstraße 42 or 44 early in the morning of May 5, 1842; a neighbor alerted the night watch at about 1 a.m. It quickly spread to number 25, across the street.[2] The weather had been unusually dry, and the wind was strong and changeable. Hamburg had fire lookouts on church towers, known as Türmer, in addition to night watchmen who had horns to sound to report a fire, and a code by which church bells reported the location and severity of fires. Volunteer teams of firefighters competed to earn a premium by being first to reach a fire. The city was dense with wooden and half-timbered houses, which tended to be tall and narrow, reflecting the shape of the building plots, and merchants operated their businesses out of their houses, so that many included warehouses containing flammables such as rubber and shellac. The provision of water for firefighting, from the Elbe and canals, was inefficient: low water made pumping difficult, and the leather hoses would not slide on ladders, so that water could not be pumped above ground level. By daybreak much of the Altstadt was on fire.
Source: Wikipedia
Type of Structure: Public building
Fire Date: 05/05/1842
Structure status: Plaque
Cause of Fire:
Unbekannt / Unknown
Documentation of the fire: [Web Link]
Other: Not listed
Construction Date: Not listed
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