fire prevention program—created by the US Forest Service (USFS) and the Wartime Advertising Council to raise public awareness of the need to protect our valuable forests both from enemy attack and human carelessness—began in 1944, the message took on new meaning in 1950. That spring, firefighters responding to a wildfire in New Mexico’s Capitan Mountains rescued a badly burned black bear cub. Strong public interest in the cub’s treatment and recovery led Forest Service officials to adopt him as a living symbol of Smokey Bear. The story of the
