Plague cases continue at a modest pace until the Great Fire of London, a major conflagration that sweeps through the central parts of the English capital, from Sunday, September 2 to Wednesday, September 5, 1666, guts the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall.

It threatens, but does not reach, the aristocratic district of Westminster, Charles II's Palace of Whitehall, and most of the suburban slums.

It consumes thirteen thousand two hundred houses, eighty-seven parish churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, and most of the buildings of the City authorities.

It is estimated that it destroyed the homes of seventy thousand of the City's approximately eighty thousand inhabitants.

The plague outbreak tapers off at about the same time. (The death toll from the fire is unknown and is traditionally thought to have been small, as only six verified deaths were recorded. This reasoning has recently been challenged on the grounds that the deaths of poor and middle-class people were not recorded anywhere, and that the heat of the fire may have cremated many victims, leaving no recognizable remains.)