The story of Smokey Bear goes right back to the war year of 1942. At that time the War Advertising Council - representing the United States advertising community - undertook to promote a national forest fire prevention campaign. It was felt that wildfires were interfering with the war effort by needlessly wasting valuable forest products and the efforts of many people involved in controlling them. During this period promotional material combined conservation with patriotism and featured such slogans as "Careless Matches Aid the Axis". In 1944 a new approach was tried with a Walt Disney "Bambi" poster and this was immediately successful. This encouraged a small group of folks from the Forest Service and the Office of War Information to plan supplementary materials featuring animals which could be introduced to the 1945 campaign being carried out by the Volunteer Advertising Agency. After various trials, a bear was chosen and a character designed with official costume much as we see today. It was decided to na me it "Smokey".

Smokey Bear soon became a popular symbol as national efforts to prevent careless fires expanded after the war. In 1947 the advertising firm of Foote, Cone & Belding - an agency creating volunteer wildfire prevention campaign material for what was now called the Advertising Council - developed the slogan, "Remember, Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires". Incidentally, Foote, Cone & Belding have been the voluntary agency handling the Smokey Bear campaign since its beginning. In 1948 Rudy Wendelin from the Washington office of the U.S. Forest Service got together with the advertising agency to bring the characterization of Smokey around to a more mature appearance inspiring trust and affection. So the idea, name and image of Smokey Bear was born.

As one way of helping to publicize this image a real-live Smokey came on the scene as the result of a disastrous fire in New Mexico called the Las Tablas fire. This blaze covered hundreds of acres and required intense effort by many men and machines to control it. After the fire had burned very quickly over a mountainous area, a crew of firefighters who had almost been caught by the onrushing flames were returning to camp. They saw a little bear cub clinging to a charred snag in the blackened area. His feet and back end were badly burned. He was alone, indicating that his mother had either been killed by the fire or fled far away to escape the terrible heat.

The little cub was crying pitifully. He was taken to the home of a nearby rancher and there was put in a shoe box - he only weighed about four pounds - by Ray Bell a member of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. Mr. Bell carefully tended the bear cub's burns and took him home to his family in Santa Fe where he wasnursed carefully back to health. This little orphan bear was nick-named Smokey by his friends who had rescued him and before long he became a local personality.

The possibility of making this little hear into a living symbol for the national wildfire program was suggested and enthusiastically agreed to by people in the United States Forest Service who were in charge of it. On June 27th, 1950, Smokey Bear left Santa Fe in a small Piper Pacer aircraft enroute to Washington where he was officially welcomed and given a special home in the National Zoo. A number of years ago, it was realized that this real live bear would eventually pass on to the happy hunting ground of all the animal kingdom and thought was given to a successor in the zoo. A lady bear -- Goldie -was introduced but they were unable to produce any cubs. In 1971 a young bear was found in the Lincoln National Forest of New Mexico. He was a brown-phased black bear like the original. He was named as the official successor to the Washington Smokey and in May of 1975, the older bear was retired and the younger one donned Smokeys hat in the Washington Zoo. It is estimated that each year about four million frien ds visit this popular resident.