ClimateWire: In the Great Fire of 1666, a fire that began in a bakery and rapidly tore through a city of wooden buildings in overpopulated slums with open sewers flowing in the streets, it was easy to count the casualties: Four noblemen died. As for the 30,000 people who lived in the tenements that burned, no one kept track. The eventual solution was memorialized in "London's Burning," a song of the day: "Pour on water, more water!"
Figuring out a solution and calculating the death toll from the near-record...