For generations, Americans have grown up with Smokey Bear: the big, gentle bear in a ranger's hat and jeans, reminding everyone that only you can prevent wildfires. He looks like a cartoon. But there really was a Smokey, a small black bear cub rescued after a forest fire.
Here's the twist: the character came first. The Forest Service created Smokey Bear as a poster symbol in 1944. Then, in the spring of 1950, a badly burned cub was found after a wildfire in New Mexico's Capitan Mountains. He was named Smokey, became the living symbol of the campaign, and spent 26 years at the National Zoo.
A Wartime Poster Bear
During World War II, many experienced firefighters were away in the armed forces, so preventing wildfires at home became urgent. The Forest Service turned to colorful posters. For a while, Disney let it use Bambi, but only for a year, so the agency needed a symbol of its own.
It settled on a bear, based on a rough sketch by Forest Service artist Harry Rossoll. The name honored “Smokey” Joe Martin, a New York City firefighter who suffered burns and blindness during a daring 1922 rescue. The Forest Service authorized Smokey on August 9, 1944, a date now considered his birthday.
The first poster showed Smokey in jeans and a campaign hat, pouring a bucket of water on a campfire. In 1947 came the famous slogan, “Remember... only YOU can prevent forest fires.” In 2001, it was updated to say wildfires.
The Cub From Capitan
The real cub was about three months old and weighed only five pounds. He had climbed a tree to escape the Capitan Gap fire, but his paws and hind legs were burned. At first, he was called Hotfoot Teddy.
Ranger Ray Bell of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish took him to Santa Fe, where Bell, his wife Ruth, and their children cared for him with help from a local veterinarian. National news services picked up the story, and people across the country called and wrote to ask how he was doing.
The state offered the cub to the Forest Service, on the condition that he be dedicated to conservation and wildfire prevention. He was flown to Washington, D.C., and when he arrived at the National Zoo on June 27, 1950, several hundred people, including Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, were waiting to welcome him.
A Celebrity With His Own ZIP Code
Smokey received so much mail, more than 13,000 letters a week, that in 1964 the Postal Service gave him his own ZIP code, 20252, which is still in use. Along with his daily bluefish and trout, he developed a love for peanut butter sandwiches. Over his 26 years at the zoo, he welcomed millions of visitors.
He retired on May 2, 1975, and an orphaned cub called Little Smokey became Smokey Bear II. The original Smokey died on November 9, 1976, and was buried in Capitan, New Mexico, at what is now Smokey Bear Historical Park. Newspapers across the country ran obituaries for him.
So Smokey Bear was a drawing before he was a bear, but the little cub from Capitan made him real. More than 75 years later, his message still holds: be careful with fire outdoors, because the forests and the creatures in them are counting on us.
