Tokyo fire officials are teaming up with a private-sector company to develop an extinguishing agent for fires caused by lithium-ion batteries.

On March 9–10, 1945, U.S. B-29 bombers carried out Operation Meetinghouse, a low-altitude incendiary raid that destroyed much of eastern Tokyo and killed an estimated 90,000 to 100,000 people. The attack exposed the brutal logic of total war: Japan’s war industry was woven into residential neighborhoods,