Turku Cathedral

Sweeping through the northern quarter, the southern quarter, and then hopping the Aura River towards the Cathedral Quarter just before midnight, the Great Fire of Turku made short work of the Nordic city, the largest in Finland at the time. When daylight finally arrived, 75% of the formerly bustling metropolis had been reduced to smoldering ruins.With only small portions of the western and southern areas still standing, it was miraculous that only 27 people perished, however the reason the casualties were so low was also one of the contributing factors to the level of destruction accomplished by the fire. Along with unusually dry weather and high winds, the reason the inferno was able to sweep so efficiently through the city was that the majority of the residents of Turku were in Tampere visiting a popular market?there was no one there to extinguish the flames.While the survival rate was high, the historical and architectural loss was devastating. Akatemiatalo, the main building of the Imperial Academy of Turku was heavily damaged, the fire swallowing up most of the Finnish archives and all of the material from the Middle Ages. Historical downtown was a pile of smoldering embers, and the grandiose Mother Church of the Lutherans of Finland, Turku Cathedral, was ravaged?but the most important religious structure in the country would rise once more.