Good article cataloguing a variety of responses to urban fires in Edo.
Metropolitan break fires:
“Tearing down neighboring houses was actually the most efficient way of firefighting. Especially in crowded downtown Edo where many houses were rickety wooden affairs with shingled roofs that caught fire like kindling.”
Hints of Chesterton:
“The more one studies the subject the more one realizes that the first impressions of the fireman’s work are wrong, and a respect for his skill rapidly increases.”