Smokey the bear cub is flown from Santa Fe, N.M., to his new home at the Washington National Zoo by New Mexico’s Assistant State Game Warden Homer C. Pickens in 1950. The little bear was rescued from a forest fire and named Smokey after the fire prevention symbol of the U.S. Forest Service, which launched in 1944.

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Smokey the bear cub is flown from Santa Fe, N.M., to his new home at the Washington National Zoo by New Mexico’s Assistant State Game Warden Homer C. Pickens in 1950. The little bear was rescued from a forest fire and named Smokey after the fire prevention symbol of the U.S. Forest Service, which launched in 1944.