Smokey Bear celebrated his 60th birthday
this summer, and the ageless advertising icon wandered out of the
woods for an elaborate birthday bash. He was feted by a crowd that
included Dale Bosworth, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and
children of firefighters who sang happy birthday to him. Smokey,
who never speaks, was also presented with what a press release
described as “a personalized gift-wrapped shovel.”
Too bad
it wasn’t a retirement party.
Smokey is not your
average bear; the stocky bear in the big hat is an advertising-age
bear, the purveyor of a slogan that is both appealing and
misleading. Smokey Bear has probably done more to distort the
public’s understanding of and attitude toward wildfire than any
other figure in American history. As a result, the public has for
decades tolerated a similarly distorted government wildfire
policy.
Press materials distributed after the Aug. 9
celebration in Universal City, Calif., hailed Smokey’s slogan —
“Only you can prevent wildfires” — as “critical” and “enduring.”
They credited the bear, and the public-service ad campaign built
around him, with helping reduce the acreage consumed by wildfires
by more than 62 percent since 1944. And they emphasized the
timeliness of his message, noting that 90 percent of all wildfires
are caused by humans and that the number of wildfires started by
campfires has been increasing over the past five years.
Reality is more complex than a press release.
It’s
impossible to say how many fires have not been set thanks to
Smokey’s message; things that have not happened are by nature
uncountable. The drop in annual wildfire acreage since 1944 is more
plausibly explained by development of the modern firefighting
industry, a vast and often effective force that relies on aircraft
unavailable before World War II.
While it is true that the
majority of wildland fires in the United States each year are set
intentionally or accidentally by humans, the great majority of
these fires are small and occur near urban areas. They can be
fought quickly, effectively and — given the threat to life and
property — appropriately.
According to the National
Interagency Fire Center, however, half the acreage burned each year
is the result of fires caused mainly by lightning. These typically
begin in remote areas during the dry storms of summer and often
sweep across tens of thousands of acres before winter rain or snow
extinguishes them.
There is nothing “you” can do to
prevent any of the thousands of fires set by lightning each year.
By failing to distinguish between ignition sources, Smokey’s
simplistic sloganeering suggests that all fires can be prevented.
The unspoken corollary to that is the notion that all fires are
therefore unnatural and bad, and should be extinguished as fast as
possible.
Smokey doesn’t come right out and say that, but
the ad campaign’s emotion-laden imagery of dead, injured or
terrified animals, charred stumps where green groves one stood, and
ominous, smoke-filled skies makes the case powerfully.
The
problem is that the stop-all-fires argument is contradicted by
everything ecologists have learned about forests, grasslands and
chaparral in the 60 years since Smokey began his mission. In most
of the West, fire is not only a natural element of these
ecosystems, it is essential. Periodic fires reduce the fuel load
before it builds to catastrophic levels, limit outbreaks of
tree-killing pests, clear the soil so seedlings can sprout and
encourage heat-adapted trees and shrubs to drop seeds or send up
new shoots.
By attempting to quash every fire as soon as
it breaks out, which until recently was the official goal of
federal policy, the firefighting industry has made the situation
worse. Over the past 60 years, in other words, Smokey has provided
propagandistic cover for a costly fire-suppression campaign that is
largely and paradoxically responsible for the combustible condition
of the nation’s forests.
Smokey’s misleading message
could be excused by ignorance 60 years ago. That’s no longer the
case. It’s time for the bear to either change his message or hang
up his shovel.
John Krist is a contributor to Writers on
the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is a senior
reporter and columnist for the Ventura County Star in
California.
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