April 5, 1798 – The worst fire in Celje's history burned down all the houses in the city, except for thirteen, which were covered with bricks.
Urban and market settlements were often the target of fires due to their typical compact construction and easily flammable building elements (wood, straw). Even a little carelessness was enough to cause a disaster. Thus, the history of the town on the Savinja River records several fires, which, in addition to causing great material damage, also claimed victims.
The biggest fire that the people of Celje experienced occurred on Maundy Thursday, April 5, 1798, when a fire broke out in the Minorite monastery at 9 a.m. Legend has it that the fire was caused by nuns who were frying fish. They allegedly threw the fish alive into the boiling fat, and as they were tossing the fish, the fat spread all around, which caught fire.
The fire quickly spread through the chimney to the roof, which also caught fire. It was a fateful coincidence that at that time a large number of soldiers who had returned from Italy were being treated in the building of the Minorite monastery. Since their knapsacks with gunpowder were stored right under the roof of the monastery, they quickly caught fire upon contact with the fire and disaster was inevitable. The crackling and sparking were quickly blown around the city by a rather strong wind, where most of the city houses burned like torches. According to chroniclers, such heat swept through the city during the fire that people fled in panic.
Since the prevention and control of fires was still very modest at the time, the consequences of the fire were severe. The entire town (192 houses) burned down in the fire, only those buildings (13 houses) that had already been covered with bricks after the fire of 1794 remained undamaged. The parish church and the Minorite monastery were also destroyed. The parish church lost all four bells in the fire, which weighed more than 2,900 pounds in total (1 Viennese pound is 0.56 kg), and three bells in the Minorite monastery, which weighed 1,960 pounds in total, melted. The fire also destroyed most of the town's documentation, only the one that was stored in the basement of the town hall remained undamaged. The damage, expressed in monetary terms, was also enormous. It was estimated that there was 231,900 guilders worth of damage to buildings, and 109,717 guilders worth of destroyed food.
In addition to the extensive material damage, six townspeople also died in the fire. In the area of what was then Mlinarska Street (today's Krekov Square), all members of the family of the shoemaker Šandor burned to death in the house. Fortunately, the other townspeople managed to escape the flames in time.
There was no real Easter mood in Celje in 1798. People had completely different worries about their destroyed homes. Even the church bells could not be heard that Sunday. Instead of church bells, a little boy invited people to the service in the badly damaged parish church, walking through the burned city streets and ringing a small bell to announce the beginning of the holy mass.
Source: Ignac Orožen, Celje Chronicle, 1854, pp. 179-180
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