An American symbol as recognizable as Mickey Mouse and Santa Claus, Smokey the Bear isn’t even named Smokey the Bear. Technically, he’s Smokey Bear, and over the past 80 years since his invention by the Ad Council at the end of World War II, America’s symbol of forest fire prevention has taken on a life—and death—of its own. In Joshua Wheeler’s eye-opening feature for Alta Journal’s Issue 29, the author details the history of Smokey, the ways in which Americans have embraced and rejected his message, and how the attitudes and Western understanding of wildfire have developed over the decades. To tell us more about Smokey and his journey, literally and culturally, Alta Live welcomes Lincoln Bramwell, chief historian of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, who, incidentally, was once assigned to don a Smokey costume for a parade. Only you can prevent yourself from missing what’s sure to be a fascinating look into a little-understood American legend.

About the guest:

As the agency historian, Lincoln Bramwell’s current research reflects the Forest Service’s broad range of activities. He is presently leading a team that is writing a book-length history of American agriculture and the role of forest conservation in this story for the United States House Committee on Agriculture.. Bramwell is also working on a book-length collection of the key legislative acts, court decisions, and agency directives that have the most impact on Forest Service management today. The collection will gather the original documents and provide an annotated narrative that places each one into historical context. In addition to these long-term projects, Bramwell is involved in directing all aspects of the agency’s history program, including public speaking, internal and external outreach, producing and managing oral histories, as well as policy support, expert testimony in federal court, and developing a strategic vision for history within the agency’s mission.

Here are some notable quotes from today’s event:

  • On the beginning of Smokey Bear: “[The wartime Ad Council] thought, ‘Maybe we’ve hit on something here. Maybe we should draw our own character.’ And that was the genesis of Smokey Bear. Someone started drawing, literally, a bear character. And people in the room were saying, ‘Why don’t you put pants on him? Why don’t you put a hat on him?’ It was literally one of those sorts of things. And eventually, there was a real bear involved here.”
  • On fire and people: “There’s an old adage in fire management and fire history: Fire follows people. And it’s true even today. There’s somewhere around 50,000 to 60,000 human-caused fires per year and only about 8,000 or 9,000 fires due to lightning.”
  • On Indigenous wildfire practices: “It really took about 50 years for western science to catch up and understand how wildfire played a role in a lot of ecosystems across the United States—a vital role in keeping those ecosystems healthy. Western science was catching up to these Indigenous techniques, and by midcentury, it became a matter of adjusting policy, practice, and the culture of trying to protect and put out all fires, which had been federal policy for about 50 years. That’s a lot of complexity to try to wrap into a bumper sticker.”
  • On fire safety: “Smokey’s message, the way we kind of think of it, is it’s trying to get people to be careful with fire. Fire has a place in ecosystems and ecosystem health—if it’s in the right place at the right time, it can do good, and if it’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, it can be incredibly damaging. And not just to human structure and lives on the communities that we have on the edges, but also to the ecosystems themselves.”

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.