Q 01/05

Which Roman emperor created the Vigiles, the first organised public firefighting force, in AD 6?

A) Nero

B) Augustus

C) Trajan

D) Julius Caesar

Answer · why

B) Augustus

The Vigiles were 7,000 men in seven cohorts, each patrolling two of Rome's fourteen districts, and were nicknamed the Sparteoli, or 'little bucket fel...

Q 02/05

Which Alexandrian inventor developed the first fire pump in the third century BC?

A) Archimedes

B) Ctesibius

C) Hero

D) Euclid

Answer · why

B) Ctesibius

Hero of Alexandria improved the design two centuries later; manual pumps then had to be rediscovered in Europe after 1500.

Q 03/05

The Great Fire of London in 1666 began in a bakery on which street?

A) Fleet Street

B) Fish Street Hill

C) Pudding Lane

D) Cheapside

Answer · why

C) Pudding Lane

The blaze that started at Thomas Farriner's bakery destroyed more than 13,000 houses, yet only a handful of deaths were officially recorded.

Q 04/05

After the 1666 fire, London's first fire brigades were run by whom?

A) Insurance companies

B) The Royal Navy

C) Parish churches

D) The Lord Mayor's guard

Answer · why

A) Insurance companies

Insurers protected only their own clients, whose buildings were marked with metal fire insurance marks so brigades knew which fires to fight.

Q 05/05

Which Dutch artist and inventor's workshop developed the fire hose in the 1670s?

A) Rembrandt van Rijn

B) Jan van der Heyden

C) Christiaan Huygens

D) Johannes Vermeer

Answer · why

B) Jan van der Heyden

The first hoses were 50-foot lengths of leather sewn together like a boot leg and joined with brass fittings.