The sailors were soon at work along the line of the Fleet Ditch. All carried axes, and with these they chopped down the principal beams of the small houses clustered by the Ditch, and so weakened them that a small charge of powder easily brought them down. In many places they met with fierce opposition from the owners, who, still clinging to the faint hope that something might occur to stop the progress of the fire before it reached their abodes, raised vain protestations against the destruction of their houses. All day the men worked unceasingly, but in vain. Driven by the fierce wind, the flames swept down the opposite slope, leapt over the space strewn with rubbish and beams, and began to climb Fleet Street and Holborn Hill and the dense mass of houses between them.

The fight was renewed higher up. Beer and bread and cheese were obtained from the taverns, and served out to the workmen, and these kept at their task all night. Towards morning the wind had fallen somewhat. The open spaces of the Temple favoured the defenders; the houses to east of it were blown up, and, late in the afternoon, the progress of the flames at this spot was checked. As soon as it was felt that there was no longer any fear of its further advance here, the exhausted men, who had, for twenty-four hours, laboured, half suffocated by the blinding smoke and by the dust made by their own work, threw themselves down on the grass of the Temple Gardens and slept. At midnight they were roused by their officers, and proceeded to assist their comrades, who had been battling with the flames on the other side of Fleet Street. They found that these too had been successful; the flames had swept up to Fetter Lane, but the houses on the west side had been demolished, and although, at one or two points, the fallen beams caught fire, they were speedily extinguished. Halfway up Fetter Lane the houses stood on both sides uninjured, for a large open space round St. Andrew's, Holborn, had aided the defenders in their efforts to check the flames. North of Holborn the fire had spread but little, and that only among the poorer houses in Fleet Valley.