Historedia
Asia PacificEvent

Great Fire of Meireki in Edo

When
1657
Where
Edo
Episodes
1

On 2 March 1657, the Great Fire of Meireki destroyed 60–70% of Edo, then Japan's de facto capital. The disaster killed an estimated 100,000 people and prompted the formal establishment of firefighting mechanisms in the city.

Episodes

  1. 2 March 1657 · EdoGreat Fire of Meireki

    A massive fire destroyed 60–70% of Edo on 2 March 1657, killing an estimated 100,000 people.

Background and detail

The Fire. The Great Fire of Meireki, also known as the Great Furisode Fire, occurred on 2 March 1657. It destroyed 60–70% of the city, with an estimated 100,000 victims. The scale of death and destruction was nearly comparable to the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and the 1945 bombing of Tokyo.

Institutional Response. Fire was a perpetual threat in Edo, captured in the saying “fire and quarrel are Edo's flowers.” The devastation of the Meireki fire prompted the formal establishment of firefighting mechanisms in the city.

Sources

  1. Great Fire of Meireki Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-08
  2. Edo Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-20

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.