Lincoln National Forest

This year, we celebrated Smokey Bear’s 75 th birthday as a national fire prevention icon. Many know Smokey’s message: “Only YOU can prevent wildfires,” but fewer people may know that Smokey was a real American black bear rescued, in the spring of 1950, from a raging wildfire in New Mexico.

With more than 40 years of professional experience working in the field of natural resources, I am sometimes asked to share the personal outdoor experiences I had as a tribal member growing up on my reservation. When the request involves children, and those children are Native American, I am...

For most of his 16 years with the U.S. Forest Service, Dave Warnack spent them boots-on-the-ground. That’s to say that he does not just talk the talk. “Wilderness will be the ultimate index by which I measure my status, progress and overall place in the world,” Warnack says in the film “ Wilderness...

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio. To celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics mission area will highlight those...

“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...

One of America’s most well-known, beloved and important icons is going to have a little work done over the next several weeks in preparation for his upcoming 70 th birthday in 2014. The mechanical Smokey Bear that welcomes scores of visitors to the U.S. Forest Service headquarters building in...

When she was in high school, Bequi Livingston read a book about firefighting and was quickly intrigued. Little did she know that she would one day become one of the U.S. Forest Service’s pioneer women in wildland firefighting and fight fires for nearly 20 years. After graduating from college, an...