The fire was centred more or less where the London Bridge Hospital is now
On the South bank just below London Bridge

The Tooley Street fire, which broke out on 23 June 1861. The fire started in consignment of jute stored at Scovell's warehouse at Cotton's Wharf. This was the biggest of all the peacetime fires in the port: it raged for two days and destroyed most of the nearby buildings. It was the greatest test of the new London Fire Engine Establishment. The whole force was mobilised to fight the blaze, including its head, James Braidwood, who was killed when a wall fell on him. It was a full two weeks before the remaining embers were finally doused.

It had been a hot summer day in London. Scovell's warehouse was located on the river's edge in Southwark, adjacent to London Bridge. The hot day may have been the reason some of the substantial iron, fire-proof, doors had been opened and allowed air to flow between the storage areas on various floors. What is known is that the doors should, in fact, have remained closed. The warehouse contained vast quantities of hemp, cotton, sacks of sugar, wooden casks of tallow, bales of jute, boxes of tea and spices.
Later reports would suggest the fire, like most fires, started small. Bales of damp cotton giving rise to very higher temperatures until the threshold arrived where spontaneous combustion occurred. As the flames rose and spread so the fire consumed ever more goods. With the iron doors not containing the blaze it soon spread beyond its point of origin.
The alarm was finally raised around five o'clock in the afternoon. It became immediately apparent that the fire had a firm hold on Scovell's wharf and was spreading to the adjoining Cotton's wharf, and it would eventually consume both Hay's and Chamberlain's wharves too.
Braidwood was quickly on the scene from Watling Street and had twenty-seven horse drawn engines, one steam engine, his two fire-floats and one hundred and seventeen firemen and officers, plus fifteen drivers fighting this conflagration on the south side of the River Thames. The fire had such a hold that water from the firemen's hose evaporated before it even reach the boundary of the fire. Burning tallow, oil and paint flowed onto the river, almost consuming one of the fire-floats.
The winds and thermals caused by the fire, aided by the Thames currents, sucked small boats into the flames.
Braidwood was not fighting the flames unaided. Capt. Hodges had brought his private fire brigade to assist Braidwood in his endeavours, his two steamers working alongside the LFEE's solitary steamer. Hodges's firemen was joined by other private brigades before parish manual pumps were rushed to the Thames-side conflagration too. Sadly these parish pumps did little to help the situation, poor training and even poorer leadership of their crews only added to the confusion and nuisance their arrival caused.
The fire burned for another two days, totally out of control. Tides ebbed and flowed. On the high tides the fire-floats could move closer to the blaze but whatever progress they made was mitigated when the tide went back out and they had to move back towards mid-stream to direct their hoses. For over a quarter of a mile the south bank of the Thames was ablaze. Braidwood's body, and that of his companion, lay under the hot brickwork for three days before they could be recovered. Whilst no other firemen perished in the fire it claimed the lives of four men on the river attempting to collect tallow. It was seven in the evening when one of his men reported the fire-floats were scorching and was seeking Braidwood's instructions.
Braidwood made his way to the river bank by way of a narrow alley off Tooley Street to see what the situation was for himself. On the way he paused to give aid to one of his men who had gashed his hand. Braidwood removed his red silk Paisley neck silk to use as a bandage to bind the man's bleeding hand. Moving on towards the river, and accompanied by Peter Scott, one of his officer's, a warehouse wall many stories high suddenly bulged and cracked before giving way completely. It fell with a deafening noise, killing both Braidwood and the officer instantly.
The efforts by his men to save the two were fruitless, but they tried anyway until beaten into a retreat by the relentless fire. Given the contents of the warehouses it is hardly surprising that explosions occurred, these projected flaming materials far and wide, setting fire to other warehouses and buildings. Braidwood's death was said to have created confusion and disorganisation at the fire since there was no one appointed to lead in his absence.

If you had been in London on Saturday 22nd June 1861, no doubt you would have made your way, with thousands of other sightseers, to watch the Tooley Street Fire burn its way from Cotton's Wharf, which was eventually destroyed, through to Hay's and other wharfs and warehouses to Tooley Street shops.
Omnibuses were packed: "Men were struggling for places on them, offering three and four times the fare for standing room on the roofs, to cross London Bridge"
"every inch of room on London Bridge was crowded with thousands and thousands of excited faces".
"Peripatetic vendors of ginger beer, fruit and other cheap refreshments abounded and were sold out half a dozen times over. Public houses, in defiance of Acts of Parliament kept open all night long, and did a roaring trade".
It is estimated some 30,000 spectators came from all over the city. By late evening the fire stretched from London Bridge to Custom House [on the north bank].
Properties destroyed included offices, an American steamer, four sailing boats and many barges as "burning oil and tallow poured in cascades from the wharfs and flowed out blazing on the river".

It took two weeks to put the fire out at an estimated cost of £2 million. The fire consumed some twenty warehouses containing 5,000 tons of rice, 10,000 barrels of tallow, 1,000 tons of hemp, 1,100 tons of jute, 3,000 tons of sugar and 18,000 bales of cotton, as well as huge quantities of bacon, tea, spices and other merchandise. It also consumed some 500 tons of saltpetre, which is used in gunpowder and also as a food preservative. Many barges on the river were also destroyed.