Family Friendly

Tokyo’s massive number of people and buildings packed into the smallest area imaginable has always left me with more than a few questions. One of the most prominent questions has always been, “How does this place not turn into a tinderbox whenever something catches fire?” Luckily, the Tokyo Fire Museum can finally answer this question and provide many other answers about disaster prevention in one of the world’s largest cities. This museum is dedicated to the founding and continuing operations of the Tokyo Metropolitan Fire Bureau, which controls fire protection for the 23 Wards of Tokyo and most of the towns within the western Tokyo prefecture. Just as the Metropolitan Police of Tokyo sets a precedent for the other 46 Prefectural police departments, so does the Tokyo Fire Bureau. Because of this, many exhibits depict the various “firsts in Japan” in firefighting. But one of the main exhibits is how the department came into being at the end of the Edo period and the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. Fires during the Feudal Period were common since everything was made from timber, and most dwellings had fire pits inside. Everything from small shacks to the biggest castles and places of…