Fire breaks out in the Winter Palace,…

Fire breaks out in the Winter Palace, the official residence of the Russian emperors in Saint Petersburg, Russia, on December 17, 1837.

Caused by soot inflammation, the fire will ravage the Palace for three days, and the glow will be visible for fifty to seventy-five kilometers (thirty to forty-five miles).

Thirty guardsmen die in the fire, although nearly all the items are saved (notably the imperial throne, guards banners, portraits of Russian generals from the Field Marshals' Hall and Military Gallery and the utensils of the Grand Church).

The fire broke out after smoke from an unswept chimney had seeped through a vent in a partition between the wooden and main walls in the Field Marshal's Hall.

The wall began to smolder and a fire broke out in the roof of the Peter the Great Hall.

The dry waxed floors and the oil-painted fretwork caught fire immediately.

The Court is at the Mikhailovsky Theater when an aide-de-camp enters the imperial box and informs Prince Volkonsky, one of the ministers then present.

The prince gives him orders and continues to look quietly on at the performance.

Half-an-hour later the aide-de-camp returns, and this time the prince speaks  to the Emperor Nicholas I.

To prevent the fire from spreading to the Hermitage, Nicholas I calls for the immediate dismantling of the gallery roofs that join the Hermitage with the main building.