It is not possible to establish the exact number of fires in Moscow, just as it is difficult to establish the exact time of the formation of the city. Initially, Moscow consisted of several scattered settlements, which were united by a wooden and earthen fortification. The only building material was wood, so, in all likelihood, fires happened there quite often, especially since the houses were heated with wood stoves.
There is information that wooden Moscow burned out completely once every 20-30 years, and local fires happened almost daily. The first major fire recorded in the annals dates back to 1177. Ryazan Prince Gleb Vladimirovich approached the Kremlin and "more Muscovy, the city and villages" - this is how it is written in the annals.
Then, from 1328 to 1343, there were four major fires, despite the fact that in 1339 Ivan Kalita rebuilt the walls of the Kremlin from oak, almost an arshin in diameter, and for prevention, the walls were coated with clay. In 1365, the largest Moscow fire at that time occurred - "Vsesvyatsky". The catastrophe was intensified by an unprecedented drought, which did not allow the fire to be extinguished: “Then the drought is great, and the storm is great, and there’s a lot of bunt and a bern with fire for ten yards, and it’s not possible to extinguish it: in a single place, extinguish it, and at ten you will light up, and you will not have time to wash your name, but all the fire will burst."
From 1368 to 1493 Moscow was set on fire by the Lithuanian prince Olgerd, Tokhtamysh, Edigei, Polovtsy. Every time after the fires, Moscow was rebuilt practically from scratch. In the end, Ivan III builds hydraulic structures around the Kremlin and organizes a regime of increased fire safety in the city, like a curfew.
In the 16th century, Moscow burned repeatedly, and in 1547 the explosion of gunpowder in the Kremlin arsenals was the cause of the fire. In 1571, the city was burned by the Crimean Tatars under the leadership of Devlet-Girey - the city was completely burned out in 3 hours, according to various sources, from 120 to 800 thousand people were burnt. The fire that destroyed 100-200 households was not considered a serious fire, no records were made. The fire of 1712 became significant, which became not only the cause of major destruction, less than a hundred people died then. The fire destroyed the foundry in which the Tsar Bell was cast, as a result of which a chip broke off from it, and the bell remained "mute" forever. There is a version that the fire broke out from a dropped candle set for the repose of her husband by a soldier's widow - from this came the expression "Moscow burned out from a penny candle."
The last major fire was the fire of 1812, after which Moscow was rebuilt in stone form, and the fires ceased to be a catastrophic disaster. The fires of the Maly and Bolshoi theaters (1837 and 1853) and the fire in Presnya in 1905, which arose as a result of artillery shelling during the December uprising, can be considered relatively large fires.
