Sabotage, Targeted Churches, and Arbitrary Executions Cloud the Fire's Intent Professor Benjamin L. Carp, Professor of History at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center | The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution Evi

Evidence suggesting the fire was deliberate includes eyewitness reports of sabotage of pumps and bucket handles, preventing effective firefighting. Furthermore, witnesses observed the burning of Trinity Church (Church of England) while dissenting churches were reportedly spared, suggesting anti-Crown targeting. General Robertson claimed he fought the fire aggressively, diverting it up Broadway to save the vital eastern commercial district. In the chaos, British soldiers conducted summary executions, bayoneting or throwing suspected incendiaries into burning buildings, including the loyalist carpenter Wright White.