The New Year Firefighter Ceremony—officially called dezome-shiki (出初式)—is a display of acrobatics and other skills organized by the Tokyo Fire Department. Its history dates back to the early years of the Edo period when the city was a veritable tinderbox—tightly packed wooden housing often with only narrow alleyways over which fires could jump with a little help from the wind. This is also a tribute to Hiroshige himself, descending from a fire fighters family.