Meghan Markle said it didn't 'make any sense' that she and Prince Harry had to do a royal engagement after Archie's nursery caught fire during their South Africa tour

• Meghan Markle said Archie's nursery caught fire during a visit to South Africa in 2019.
• She spoke about the incident in the first episode of her new podcast series, "Archetypes."

Meghan Markle said her son Archie's nursery caught fire during a visit to South Africa in the first episode of her Spotify series, "Archetypes."

In the podcast series, the Duchess of Sussex plans to speak to women who conquered different tropes, according to a press release sent to Insider. In the first episode, which aired on Tuesday, Markle spoke to Serena Williams about gender and ambition, and Williams' step back from professional tennis.

During the conversation, Williams revealed that her daughter Olympia fell out of her high chair and broke her wrist the night before the French Open. She didn't disclose which year of the tournament the incident took place.

"I was so mad at myself for even allowing that to happen," Williams told Markle. "So I think I got like 30 minutes of sleep and then I had to go play this match. And I'm just thinking, how am I going to play?"

"So when you went and played that match the next morning, no one knew what your night had been like the night before," Markle said.

The duchess went on to compare Williams' anecdote with a difficult experience she had with her son Archie, who was born in May 2019. Markle said there had been a fire at the housing unit where Archie was staying with his nanny, Lauren, during Markle and Prince Harry's royal tour of South Africa in September 2019. Archie, who was four months old at the time, joined them on the tour.

"She was supposed to put Archie down for his nap and she just said, 'You know what? Let me just go get a snack downstairs,'" Markle said.

"And she was from Zimbabwe and we loved that she would always tie him on her, her back with a mud cloth, and her instinct was like, 'Let me just bring him with me before I put him down," she said.

Markle said that the heater in the nursery caught fire while Lauren and Archie were downstairs.

"There was no smoke detector. Someone happened to just smell smoke down the hallway went in, fire extinguished. He was supposed to be sleeping in there," she said.

"And of course, as a mother, you go, 'Oh, my God, what?' Everyone's in tears, everyone's shaken. And what do we have to do? Go out and do another official engagement? I said, 'This doesn't make any sense,'" she added.

To listen to the full episode, visit Archetypes on Spotify.