What is Smokey Bear up to?

Search: smokey the bear

Why: Caroline is talking about D.A.R.E., which had posters like this:

That mascot looks grrrreat!

Answer: Still preventing wildfires! They're wildfires now, by the way, not just forest fires. They changed the terminology to encompass a more comprehensive threat in 2001.

1944, 48, and 49:

1970, 1985, 2001:

Source: SmokeyBear.com

The More You Know: Smokey came as part of a campaign to prevent forest fires during World War II.

Since most able-bodied men were already serving in the armed forces, none could be spared to fight forest fires on the West Coast. The hope was that local communities, educated about the danger of forest fires, could prevent them from starting in the first place. The Japanese, on the other hand, saw wildfires as a possible weapon.

Before Smokey, the posters were pretty grim:

The real Smokey Bear was a darling little black bear cub who was caught in 1950 in a wildfire that burned 17,000 acres of New Mexico. Over the 26 years that he lived in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., he got so much mail that the USPS gave him his own zip code.

Fun fact: Bears can not read.