residents in the area threatened by the fire chose to flee, but in some places residents chose to stay in their houses and fight the fire. This happened in the first three to four houses on the north side of Østergade. Here people spread themselves throughout the houses both inside and out, armed with buckets and plenty of water. This prevented the fire from taking hold and saved the neighbouring street of Købmagergade at the same time, since it would have inevitably have spread to there as well. Royal advisor Carsten Anker (Danish title: konferensråd) had his mansion on the corner of Vingårdsstræde and Kongens Nytorv saved by covering both it and a connected building with a sail that constantly had water poured on it. Supreme Court Justice Peter Uldall (Danish title: justitsråd) saved his mansion in Vimmelskaftet by paying a large party to stay and put out any embers. It also prevented the fire from spreading to the northern side of the plaza, so only the southern side burned down. Consequences The fire died out on Sunday, 7 July, around 4 pm. It had destroyed 909 houses and partially damaged 74. Just over 6,000 of the just under 100,000 residents in the capital were made homeless. A large number of them took refuge in the ruins of the recently burned-down Christianborgs Castle, the remaining walls of which were so large that an entire family could move into a window niche. The stables were also used as housing. The fire had, together with Copenhagen's fire of 1728, in effect burned down almost the whole of Copenhagen's medieval and Renaissance heritage and so only a few houses from before the 18th century remain in that part of the city. More historic buildings in Copenhagen would be lost to fire in 1807 when the city was bombarded by the British. The fire was a strong contributing factor to the foundation of Denmark's first credit institution, Kreditkassen for Husejerne i Kjøbenhavn, in 1797. After the fire, a large-scale plan was designed by the city planner Jørgen Henrich Rawert and the construction master Peter Meyn. The plan dictated the newly constructed houses should be made of masonry (instead of being timber framed) and house corners at intersections should be diagonal and the streets straightened so that the fire department's long ladder companies could navigate the streets more easily. References Fires in Copenhagen 18th-century fires