In 1944 the U.S. government started a national campaign of wildfire prevention and used several symbols to illustrate posters showing the importance of being careful not to start wildfires. One of the most suc- cessful symbols then was Bambi, from the Walt Disney motion picture created in the same year. But Bambi could not continue encouraging people to practice fire safety because Disney Studios allowed the Forest Service to use Bambi for only one year. After that, the service needed to find a new symbol, and they decided that a bear would be carrying the fire-prevention message to the public. His name is Smokey Bear.

The first poster of Smokey Bear appeared on August 9, 1944, with the famous line:"Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires."In 2001 Smokey Bear updated his message to "Only YOU Can Prevent Wildfires"to ad- dress the...