Historical re-enactment of

the great fire of Neustadt.

Shortly after the Napoleonic wars a party of Austrian soldiers were returning home via Neustadt and stopped over night for rest. A careless cigarette is believed to have started the fire which destroyed over 70 houses with no loss of life.

The whole performance lasted some 40 minutes and involved over 100 actors some of whom looked very like certain firemen seen around our town. because of the position of the event and the crowd I was unable to get photographic proof but when you consider that included in  the event were 3 hand pumped fire tenders 2 pulled by horses and one by man power the whole event was a training event for the fire service and they controlled the whole thing in the background. The hose you can see in the last photo is in fact damping down a rather large tree that was behind the set. That is quite a jet for a hand pump.