Carolyn Sill, SCA Interpreter

He needs no introduction, though I’m giving him one anyway. Though he’s 80 years old, and weighs over 300 pounds (as per his official site), he bear-ly looks any different than he did in the 1950’s. He can be found everywhere, from giant cutouts along the road, to public service announcements on your TV, to t-shirts and other merchandise. While most bears would give you a scare if you were to see one up close, I think every American would happily welcome this icon into their home. He’s the boar*, the myth, the legend: he’s Smokey Bear!

An Ursine Icon

The mascot, clad in jeans and a ranger’s hat, was first created in 1944 by the Forest Service and the Ad Council. He remains widely known and recognized. Many people, however, may not know of the “real” Smokey Bear, who was born just 6 years later. In 1950, a forest fire broke out in New Mexico. Not just any fire, either: it was so massive, it had to be taken on not just by NM firefighters and park rangers, but ones from neighboring Texas as well. The fire raged for several days, destroying nearly all of the area’s flora and fauna. The lone survivor was a terrified bear cub, covered in burns, clinging feebly to a charred tree. Pitying the poor orphan, the fire crew brought him to be treated for his wounds. When the cub recovered, he was brought to Washington, DC’s National Zoo, and named-what else?-Smokey.

This tragic, though ultimately uplifting, story captured hearts all over the nation, and people wrote in asking what they could do to prevent further disasters. This was what caused Smokey Bear (the fictional one)’s fame to truly grow. Motivated by the cub’s story, people were willing to listen, and Smokey (and the Forest Service) were there to promote fire smarts.

Part of why Smokey is so endearing is because of how personal his message is. Think about his slogan for a second-“Only you can prevent forest fires.” Not humanity as a whole, not even just your family members, but YOU, the individual, have the power to act. Stopping a fire is a Herculean task. But by simply drowning campfires, refraining from smoking in the woods, and just being responsible, you have the power to prevent a fire from happening at all. When the individual is made responsible, big things seem more manageable.

Another, more superficial reason why Smokey has lasted in the public conscious for so long is because he’s so incredibly marketable. He had his own comic book series, and the inaugural issue featured his back story: inspired by the real-life New Mexico incident, Smokey (the mascot) was rescued from a fire as a cub, just like the real one. Smokey’s face has adorned model trains, baseball caps, coloring books, and enamel pins. He even had his own cartoon series in the 60s!

After These Messages…

I’d like to highlight some of Smokey’s ads from over the years. They all have the same message-that once again, only you can prevent wildfires-but they illustrate this in different ways. This one lets us literally see life from Smokey’s eyes as his forest home burns down. This advertisement approach was definitely a little darker and grimmer, and not as friendly of a message.

This next one is minimalistic in its approach. Simple visuals, simple audio (just a child singing), but the message is clear: it takes just one lit match to destroy a whole ecosystem, leaving nothing for your kids to see. (A personal note, I remember seeing this one as a young child in the 2000s and being terrified-it worked well for me!)

Other times, there have been attempts to make Smokey “hip”, to appeal better to young people. One ad, made during the heyday of N*SYNC and the Backstreet Boys, features an animal boy band singing with Smokey, while another one has Smokey rapping!

Up in Smokey

I’ve spent almost all of this article praising Smokey and his many variants. But I’d be remiss in my rangering to omit the fact that he’s quite controversial as well. You see, while wildfires can be horribly devastating events, there are some species that need them for survival. In Michigan, there’s a bird known as the Kirtland’s warbler, which only nests in young jack pine trees. It just so happens that the only way to keep a large amount of young jack pine trees is through fire. But when fire prevention ramped up in the mid 1900s, the average number of jack pine forest burned each year dropped from 14000 acres to just 1000. The birds disappeared as well, with just 167 breeding pairs existing in the 80s. Happily, though, their numbers have bounced back as we have rediscovered the importance of fire as a conservation tool.

Yes, a fire is as much a tool for conservation as a tranquilizer dart or a Havaheart trap! You may have been told that pre-colonial America was a vast forest from sea to sea, but that’s a myth. All over this great land, indigenous people set fires to make clearings for the game they hunted, and to encourage growth of edible plants like blueberries. Europeans put a stop to this practice, thinking that it makes no sense to light a fire if you want to conserve an area. And, in fairness, the idea does sound absurd at first. But as years of fire suppression went on, organic matter such as leaves and twigs built up on forest floors. This means that when fires did break out, the destruction was worse than anything ever seen before!

Well, here in the Granite State, virtually all of our wildfires are caused by human carelessness. Smoking, undrowned campfires, and other manmade causes are pretty much the only ones seen in New Hampshire. And we don’t have Kirkland’s warblers or other animals like that who need fires. So as far as I’m concerned, at least in our corner of the US, Smokey is a hero with a message we should all revere. Remember that only YOU can prevent wildfires, dear reader.

For further information on the Kirtland’s warbler, check out https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/jack-pine-juggernauts-what-will-happen-to-kirtlands-warblers-after-delisting/. And for more on indigenous burning practices, check out https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/indigenous-fire-practices-shape-our-land.htm.

*- A boar is a male bear. Female bears are called sows. Following the porcine logic, you’d think baby bears were called piglets, but no, they’re cubs.

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