Smokey Bear is 65 years old this month, and to honor the beloved bruin, the Forest Service has hosted celebrations around the country (and spruced up its Web site, www.smokeybear.com)
The agency is proud of its mascot, claiming Smokey (and no, there’s no “The” in his name) has helped reduce the number of acres burned each year by wildfires from 22 million in 1944 to an average of seven million today.
So obviously, that message – “Only YOU can prevent forest fires,” has worked. Before the agency had Smokey Bear, it took a slightly less kind, less gentle approach.
“Death rides the forest when man is careless!” screamed one of the very first Forest Fire Prevention Campaign posters, featuring a grimacing skeletal creature on a rearing horse.
That image, in 1940, started a decade of forest fire-prevention ads that alternately appealed to both our senses of conservationism and nationalism in a time of war. “Our Carelessness – Their Secret Weapon,” with a cartoon of a leering Nazi was on a bookmark distributed in 1943.
“Careless Matches Aid the Axix,” warned another bookmark in 1943. Smokey made his appearance in 1944, and after the war ended, the Forest Service opted to spread its message a different way.
In 1948, a poster depicted the loveable bear on his knees with the message, “And please make people careful, amen.”
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Though a lot of those fire prevention efforts have resulted in forests that are way (unnaturally) overgrown, creating a much greater potential hazard if/when they do catch fire. Nature uses fire to keep its forests healthy…
Of course, part of our problem is thinking we need to live wherever we want. Sadly, my own house is probably a perfect example. Should we really have housing developments like mine, sitting in the forest, high up in the mountains? How much money and manpower is wasted in protecting such homes, when otherwise we could simply allow nature to run its course?