The Great Town Fire of 1706

The Great Town Fire

Urban conflagrations were catastrophes that tended to hit medieval towns repeatedly. Erlangen, too, was severely damaged several times by war-related and other fires.

Eyewitness accounts tell us about the last great town fire in Erlangen on 14th August 1706. The fire broke out at four o'clock in the afternoon in the alleyway between the Rotes Ross ('Red Horse') and Goldene Krone ('Golden Crown') inns, when sparks from the defective chimney of a brandy still ignited a load of hay. The two yoked oxen panicked and pulled the burning cart into a barn filled with the recent harvest. Almost the entire town burnt to the ground within a few hours. The Altstädter Rathaus ('Old Town Hall'), including the town registry, as well as the Altstädter Kirche ('Old Town Church') – only recently restored after the Thirty Years' War – were destroyed. Most of the buildings inside the ring wall burned down, only a few houses on the northern part of Hauptstraße ('Main Street') were spared.

To prevent a similar calamity in the future, a new fire code was decreed for Erlangen's Old Town and New Town. It regulated the use of fire extinguishers, fire prevention, and behaviour in the event of a fire. All citizens were obliged to help fighting fires.