September 14, 1812

Fire of Moscow (1812)

Russian evacuation, French entry and the first fires in Moscow

Rostopchin pulled more than 2,000 firefighters and nearly 100 pumps out of Moscow just before the occupiers walked in.

14 September 1812: an army filing out, a vanguard waiting

Kutuzov's army evacuated Moscow on 14 September 1812. Its artillery had begun leaving late on the 13th, and the infantry followed from about 3 a.m.

The Russian rearguard commander Mikhail Miloradovich obtained a temporary truce from Murat so that the army could clear the city without a street battle. Murat's vanguard entered western Moscow after 2 p.m., and Napoleon's occupation began — of the old and symbolic capital, not the Empire's seat of government, which was Saint Petersburg.

Fires by evening

Fires appeared that evening, once the Russian rearguard had gone. The reported causes were several at once: planned destruction of selected resources, fires set by retreating soldiers or residents, looting, and the bivouac fires of Napoleon's own troops.

Governor-general Fyodor Rostopchin had removed the city's firefighting capacity during the evacuation — more than 2,000 fire-brigade personnel and nearly 100 pumps.

Who did it is still argued

The consulted scholarship does not establish that Rostopchin issued a surviving order to burn all of Moscow, and responsibility remains disputed. Chronologies also differ on the start: some treat 14 September as the fire's first day, others date the great conflagration from the 15th, after smaller outbreaks the evening before.

The destruction ran over several days rather than a single night, eventually taking about 7,000 of Moscow's 9,500 buildings. The flames grew threatening enough that Napoleon had to leave the Kremlin for the suburban Petrovsky Palace.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →

What the sources leave uncertain

September 14 is Gregorian, corresponding to September 2 in Russia’s Julian calendar.
The responsibility question is genuinely disputed. Evidence supports several sources of ignition, but the consulted scholarship does not establish that Rostopchin issued a surviving order to burn all Moscow.
Some chronologies treat September 14 as the fire’s first day; others identify September 15 as the beginning of the great conflagration after smaller fires appeared on the 14th.