2-998-773 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Ryogoku Fire Sketched from Hamacho on the 26th of January, 1881, (1881). The fire broke out in Kanda Matsueda-cho, half a mile west of Kiyochika's house near the west end of Ryogoku Bridge. Probably the work of an arsonist, the fire spread rapidly, fanned by strong seasonal winds from the northwest. It reached the foot of Ryogoku Bridge, consuming Kiyochika's home. The fire was then driven across the Sumida River to the Honjo area, traveling south to Fukagawa until it finally burned out in the early evening of the same day after sixteen hours of devastation. The greatest of all the many fires in Meiji Tokyo, it destroyed over 10,000 buildings.