Smokey Bear

We just wrapped up the 15 th annual National Farmers Market Week here at USDA. It has been an AMAZING week filled with celebrations at farmers markets across the country. Last Friday, at our own USDA Farmers Market, we hosted hundreds of youths to introduce them to healthy back-to-school snacks; and...

“Remember . . . Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires.” For more than 50 years, that iconic catch phrase grabbed the hearts and minds of generations of children, spurred a series of books, games and gifts, helped to change the face of wildland firefighting and prompted more than one child to grow up to...

Smokey Bear, the iconic symbol of wildfire prevention for 70 years, is for many people a comforting symbol of a promise that everything will be okay. As long as we all work together, as one of Smokey’s young pen pals wrote recently. “Dear Smokey: I would like to be a Junior Forest Ranger and help...

Joyce Qin has some pretty proud grandparents. They made their first trip from China to Washington, D.C., to watch U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell honor the 11-year-old Memphis-area student as the national winner of the 2014 Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl Poster Contest. “Joyce competed against 30...

As a U.S. Forest Service employee, I was very excited recently to take my two preschool age daughters to visit my co-workers: Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl. The visit, however, took us to the Betty Brinn Museum’s Home Sweet Home Exhibit located in Milwaukee, Wis. Created in collaboration with the...

With yet another busy fire season around the corner, the U.S. Forest Service, CAL FIRE and the U.S. Fire Administration decided to take to social media and talk about America’s PrepareAthon!, which is a nationwide, community-based campaign for action to increase emergency preparedness and resilience...

Forget the high-priced dinner, artificial moon glow and hurried wait staff this Valentine’s Day. Try, instead, something very different from the tried and true red roses that wilt away or those earrings that she really had hoped would be a ring. Plan a visit to a national forest or grassland. Let a...

The National Basketball Association’s Denver Nuggets honored U.S. Forest Service Hotshot crews and first responders throughout the state of Colorado at a recent Fans and Heroes Night in Denver. The U.S. Forest Service participated in activities before, during and after the game with Smokey Bear...

It was hard to hear over the noise of screaming spectators chanting “USA, USA, USA” recently at the finish line of the USA Pro Challenge in downtown Denver. The city served as the end point for the more than 600-mile, seven-stage road cycling race held in Colorado for the third consecutive year...

Whether you give a hoot and don’t pollute or go out and lend a hand to care for the land, thank Woodsy Owl, the iconic symbol of conservation of the U.S. Forest Service. After all, Woodsy Owl celebrates his 42 nd birthday on Sept. 15 and has outlasted most environmental symbols from the 1970s and...