Smokey Bear Celebrates 75th Birthday

COLUMBUS, Oh. – America’s forest fire fighting bear turned 75 Friday.

Smokey Bear was born in 1944 when the U.S. Forest Service and Ad Council teamed up to create a mascot to spread their message.

Forest fire prevention had become a big issue because many experienced fire-fighters were overseas fighting in World War Two.

That left fewer of them available to fight fires at home, Making prevention more important.

Smokey’s original tag-line was “care will prevent nine out of ten fires.”

Then in 1947, He started saying what we all know today: “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

To celebrate, his official twitter handle is asking people to post videos of themselves singing “Happy Birthday” to him.