Great fire of '86

The great fire of '86 was a major conflagration that occurred at the royal library of the Varrock Palace, and was later recounted by the current palace librarian, Reldo, in a letter published in the Postbag from the Hedge.^[1] The exact date of the incident is unclear, but the fire is likely to have swept the castle at some point during the late Fourth Age, since the only year ending in 86 in the Fifth Age is the year 86 itself, which is presumably precluded by the presence of an apostrophe.

According to Reldo, a neglectful cataloguing system is ultimately to be blamed for sparking the great fire, which ignited after a small collection of works on spontaneous combustion was carelessly placed right next a "rather lively tome on literary sentience" on the library shelves. This characterisation of the latter tome as being unusually animated implies that it didn't merely contain a discourse on textual consciousness, but had become a conscious text itself. Although the terse account of events given by Reldo leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks, it is likewise implied that the tome then learned about the intricacies of self-immolation by studying its adjacent volumes, and consequently acted on that knowledge.

While the tome's motivation remain unknown, there is some precedent for the phenomenon of recently ensouled objects voluntarily pursuing self-destruction. During the events of Bone Voyage, the Lead Navigator narrates the fate of the ninth canal barge intended to be used in the expedition, which had been built out of magic logs. The barge reportedly ran itself against the cliffs of Crandor soon after developing consciousness.^[2] Consequently, if it were the case that the treatise on spontaneous combustion had been printed on paper rather than parchment, the possibility that magic trees may have been used as its source of paper pulp ought not be discounted.

Intriguingly, Reldo justifies locking up library assistants in a back room by describing them as "very slippery and prone to getting drunk and burning books".^[3] This description could have been meant as a reference to the great fire of '86, insinuating that it may have been an inebriated junior aid who was responsible for the unfortunate shelf arrangement that preluded catastrophe.

Reforms were enacted in the aftermath of the great fire of '86 which prescribed stricter procedures for the handling and storage of the library's literature.^[4]