Great fire of Pealhal

The Great fire of Pealhal came following the devastating siege of the city in the closing months of the war that would later be known as The Decade of 5 Emperors.

Pearlhal in the 1155s

Pearlhal in 1155 was not the safe place it had been during the previous war against the Principality of Clifia, this time the loyalist forces, possible from having lost many of their most veteran soldiers during the previous war or to old age in the following period of peace, the loyalist was unable to stop the rebel army from taking the capital and had to surrender the city for two years as they retreated to lick their wounds and rebuild their shattered armies, during this time crime and lawlessness was rampant in the city and by the time of the loyalists returned and laid siege to the city, the city was only a shadow of its former glory, and during the siege and following the battle, much of the city got damaged with ruined housed blocking sections of the city off from the rest.
In one of these cut-off sections, the fire that would become known as the Great fire of Pearlhal began.

Development of the fire

Not much is known about how the fire started. Still, it is generally accepted that the fire started around midday in a ruined warehouse that was being used to house homes of the city's citizens who had become homeless following the siege, the first hour of which the locals tried to put off the fire. Still, the fire was only getting more substantial due to the dry weather and the wind coming in from the sea. It soon became clear to the locals that they could not handle this by themself, so the local mage was called to put off the fire. Still, the mage had not been able to get his powers back as he had used most of it earlier that morning to save a kid that had been badly burned by another housefire that luckily was put out in time. Unable to put it out with water and sand and the mage not having any magic left, the fire spread faster and faster as it was able to find more places it could ignite and due to the wind picking up, the fire was also carried to other locations and stated local fires there.
By the time the wider city knew about the fire, it had become impossible to put out even with all the mages in town as there weren't that many as most had fled the city before the siege, nor did the loyalist army have many mages at this point. 
Two days after the fire had started, the people had abandoned all attempts to fight it. They began fleeing out of the city, leaving the majority of the remaining people in the city to be soldiers of the loyalist army who, under order of Emperor Malthin II began to demolish housed in a ring around the fire as to attempt to either stop the spread of it or to slow it down, by this time the fire was just outside of the walls around the Royal Palace of Dercia.
By the third day, the fire had created a firestorm in the middle of the city due to the hot air rising above, and the city's narrow streets created a vacuum at street level that sucked people into the flames.

The Fire of Rome by Hubert Robert

Deaths and destruction

While the precise numbers are impossible to know due to the damage of the fire and the siege beforehand, many scholars agree that between 23,240 and 35,573 houses, 87 parish temples, 34 warehouses, the Imperial Exchange, the Custom House, Grand Temple of Mara were destroyed during the fire or affected by it, the Royal palace was also significantly damaged during the fire but compared to other affted buildings, relatively intact and would be opened up by the Emperor to help house some of the now homeless people.

Reaction

In the aftermath of the fire, many fingers were pointed. While some theories that Clifian infiltrators instigated it can not be ruled out, many have since settled with two hypotheses that it was either the gods punishing the Crienias for fighting among themself, others believe it to just be an accident due to the state of the city during this time; they argue that it was only a question of time before such a fire would break out.

Rebuilding

The rebuilding of the city was a slow process, but by 1164 most buildings had been reconstructed or replaced with new ones; the only two buildings that were not completed yet were the Grant Temple of Mara, this was due to specific materials being hard to come by in the needed amounts, and the other building was the Palace, the Emperor had said that the city and temples took priority and that the Palace could wait til the people had a roof over their head.
The last two buildings would be completed by the end of the 60s

Impact

Besides the physical changes to Pearlhal, the Great Fire had a significant demographic, economic, and cultural impact. The fire caused areas west of Pearlhal to receive most new residents, with the rest fleeing to surrounding towns. Still, there was also a general increase in the city's population density outside the city walls. Approximately 9,000 new houses would be built in the area where over 23,000 had been destroyed; by 1159, most of these were still unoccupied. Citizens saw a significant decrease in their rent