Was there ever a real Smokey Bear? Kind of. In 1950, crews battling a wildfire in New Mexico heard there was a bear cub alone near the fire line. The blaze nearly killed about 30 firefighters ...

The dark green plate would feature Smokey Bear, a well-known cartoon icon representing the U.S. Forest Service’s Wildfire Prevention Campaign. For those of you who don’t know, Smokey is based on a ...

First things first. Smokey Bear’s middle name is not “the.” “The origin of the ‘the’ is somebody made a fun little song about Smokey and, to make the cadence of the song work ...

Created in 1944 as part of a campaign to educate the US public about the dangers of forest fires, Smokey was initially just a cartoon. That was until 1950, when an American black bear cub (pictured ...

You can learn more about who can prevent forest fires at the new Smokey Bear exhibit at four Forest Preserve District of Will County visitor centers.