Meireki Great Fire

Timeline

1. 1657Hongō Honmyō-ji area · EdoOn the eighteenth day of the first month of Meireki 3, a fire broke out near Hongō Honmyō-ji. Strong northwest winds drove the flames toward the densely wooden low city; later legend about a burning furisode gave rise to the name 'Furisode Fire'. Another fire started elsewhere the next day, and the fire line crossed Nihonbashi and Kyōbashi, leaving the city ablaze for three days.
2. 1657Edo Castle · EdoFlames penetrated Edo Castle, burning the keep and severely damaging the honmaru, ninomaru, and other buildings. Traditional records hold that some sixty to seventy percent of the city was destroyed, with deaths variously claimed at 100,000; modern research generally puts the figure in the tens of thousands, still one of the deadliest urban disasters in early modern Japan. Shogun Ietsuna fled the fire, and the shogunate's governing center was briefly paralyzed.
3. 1657Edo · EdoThe shogunate opened granaries to distribute rice and set up temporary shelters for victims, and, with the participation of regents such as Hoshina Masayuki, determined reconstruction principles: not to rebuild the keep to save costs and prevent fires, to widen roads as firebreaks, and to relocate temples to the outskirts such as Koishikawa and Asakusa. These immediate decisions launched over a decade of Edo replanning.