Featured on PDR in the collection Japanese Firemen’s Coats (19th century)

During the Edo period in Japan (1615–1868), crowded living conditions and wooden buildings gave rise to frequent fires — so frequent in fact it was said that “fires and quarrels were the flowers of Edo”. The socially segregated brigades formed to combat these fires were made up of either samurais (buke hikeshi) or commoners (machi hikeshi), but whatever their class their methods were the same: they would destroy the buildings surrounding the fire in an effort to contain it. Although experiments with wooden pumps were made, limited water supply rendered this more modern firefighting method impractical.