In the 1660s and 1670s Amsterdam introduced a new fire‑fighting system designed by brothers Jan and Nicolaas van der Heyden, which reduced fire damage and became the city’s standard method.

Amsterdam’s rapid trade and manufacturing in the 17th century created many fire hazards, including stores of pitch, tar, and other combustible materials, as well as workshops and ships that increased the risk of large urban fires.

Initially, the city purchased large water‑pumping engines from Hans Hautsch of Nuremberg, each equipped with a manually operated cistern, metal pipe, and nozzle, and distributed about 60 of these engines by 1670 along with ladders, hooks, tarpaulins, and more than 28,000 leather buckets. Members of four guilds — inland sailors, peat carriers, beer carriers, and grain weighers — were assigned to fight fires in their districts.

A fire at a sugar refinery on the Laurier Canal in December 1669 demonstrated the limits of the existing equipment; despite a ready water supply, the flames could not be reached inside the building, leading to total loss of the refinery and the owner’s house, valued at an estimated 195,000 guilders.

Another major fire in February 1672 at the printing office of cartographer Joan Blaeu destroyed two well‑equipped shops, including the space where the maps of the Atlas maior were printed, causing losses of 382,000 guilders.

In 1669, Jan van der Heyden proposed a system of 1,800 oil lanterns for street lighting, which the city installed and for which he was appointed director of the municipal lights, receiving a salary of 2,000 guilders per year. His work also included designs for improved fire engines.

The brothers’ new engine incorporated a leather suction hose that could draw water from a distance, a flexible leather hose — called a “snake” — that could reach deeper into buildings, and an air chamber that provided a continuous high‑pressure flow, addressing freezing issues in cold weather. In November 1672 the city council decided to retrofit half of the existing engines with these suction and pressure hoses.

A fire on January 12, 1672, at harbor buildings storing military supplies tested the new equipment. Although the new engine arrived late, it was able to save adjacent sheds and clear a path for hoses, demonstrating its effectiveness compared with older engines.

Following the January 1672 incident, the guild fire companies petitioned the city to replace the awkward retrofitted engines with lighter, fully new units. In 1681 the mayors ordered the Van der Heyden brothers to produce enough engines for each of the city’s sixty districts and to draft regulations for their use.

The new regulations introduced a system of fire alarms using trumpeters in city towers, monetary rewards for the first three fire companies to arrive, and fines for individuals who attempted to fight a fire before sounding an alarm. Fire fighters were not salaried; each district fire company consisted of 36 residents serving under two fire masters, who were required to serve a year or pay a fine.

From 1682 to 1687, Amsterdam recorded 41 fires with total losses of 18,353 guilders, a fraction of the losses recorded in the earlier decade under the previous system, indicating a marked improvement in fire control.

The reforms illustrated how civic institutions could adopt technical innovations and organizational changes to reduce urban risk, reflecting the city’s broader culture of paying for useful public improvements.