the fires when his siege engines were bombarded. During the First English Civil War, incendiary devices were used to raze city centers. Defenders in London were advised to combat the flames using milk, sand, earth, and urine. In Colchester, fires caused by hand grenades (the weapon was called "wildfire" by the combatants) were extinguished using wet clothes saturated in milk and vinegar. Types of weapons Flaming arrows, bolts, spears and rockets Lit torches (burning sticks) were likely the earliest form of incendiary device. They were followed by incendiary arrows, which were used throughout the ancient and medieval periods. The simplest flaming arrows had oil- or resin-soaked tows tied just below the arrowhead and were effective against wooden structures. Both the Assyrians and the Judeans used flaming arrows at the siege of Lachish in 701 BC. More sophisticated devices were developed by the Romans which had iron boxes and tubes which were filled with incendiary substances and attached to arrows or spears. These arrows needed to be shot from loose bows, since swift flight extinguished the flame; spears could be launched by hand or throwing machine. Flaming arrows required the shooter to get quite close to their desired target and most will have extinguished themselves before reaching the target. In response, another form of fire arrow was developed which consisted of curved metal bars connecting a tip and hollow end for the shaft. The resulting cage was filled with hot coals or other solid object which could be fired from a much stronger bow or ballista without fear of extinguishing and would be used to ignite straw or thatch roofs from a safer distance. Flaming arrows and crossbow bolts were used throughout the period. Fifteenth-century writer Gutierre Diaz de Gamez witnessed a Spanish attack on the Moorish town of Oran in 1404 and later described how "During the most part of the night, the galleys did not cease from firing bolts and quarrells dipped in tar into the town, which is near the sea. The noise and the cries which came from the town were very great by reason of the havoc that was wrought." Anna Komnene records that at the 1091 Battle of Levounion, lighted torches were fixed to spears. The Chinese Song Dynasty created fire arrowsrockets attached to arrows and launched en masse through platforms, and later created rockets such as the huo long chu shui, a multistage rocket