Early Britain

In Great Britain, until the invasions of Angles, Saxons and Jutes, the villages of the day did not worry too much about fire risk. The houses were built of primitive materials (easily rebuilt) and were not too close together for fire to spread.
King Alfred's soldiers were packed into fortified areas and as towns developed from this they became fire traps- houses of combustible materials were built dangerously close together. These conditions remained for several hundred years with several towns and cities being affected by serious fires until the first Great Fire of London in 1212. This fire killed 3000 people before burning itself out.
Certain fire precautions were put in place in other towns and cities after this fire, but not a lot of effort was put into organised fighting of fires. It was going to take another disaster for the situation to change, and this was Saturday 1st September 1666 and was the second Great Fire of London. This fire started in a bakers shop in Pudding Lane, at 2am. The fire raged for three days and left 200000 people homeless along with the devastation of over 12000 houses.
The people involved in rebuilding the city vowed that such great loss should never occur again. One of the leaders of the rebuild was Dr Nicholas Barbon who charged "Insurance" premiums on property in order to spread the cost of fire loss over a larger number of people. The authorities also made some precautionary measures by dividing the city into quarters and equipping each area with a quantity of fire fighting equipment. Insurance Brigades continued for many years, but this did not stretch very far out of London. Plates would be fixed to insured buildings so that firemen would know which brigade should deal with the fire.
The earliest "fire engine" record dates back to 1612, but it was not until 1721 that a pump was designed with an air vessel on the delivery side of the pump that allowed a clean, continuous jet of water. Many communities had manual pumps but manning them was a problem. Into the 1700's Parliament was still laying responsibility for fire fighting with the church authorities.
hree Insurance Companies in 1791 provided joint patrols of the streets of London, and at the end of the 18th Century the threat of French invasion saw groups of Englishmen form defence organisations. As they had little to do most of the time, their duties also included fire fighting and continued after Napoleons defeat.