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After his earlier, peaceful farmyards, landscapes, and moonlit beaches, Van der Poel seems to have developed a penchant for the depiction of catastrophic events. Not only did he paint numerous views of Delft during and after the explosion of 1654 that devastated large parts of the city but, possibly inspired by the event, he also made a specialty of nocturnes showing burning houses and people desperately trying to fight the fire and save their possessions - or loot other people's. These "brandjes" (little fires), as they were known in contemporary inventories, were evidently popular and gained Van der Poel the accolade of being 'the best painter of fire in all of the Netherlands."
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