Helping Smokey Bear Get Dressed

The Forest Fire Prevention Icon Visits Auburn

It’s not often (never actually) that I get to host Smokey Bear in my library office!

Of all the things that I had to learn to do in my role as library director that I didn’t expect - plumbing, duct cleaning, sifting through a tray of animal bones - I’d have to say that helping dress Smokey Bear has been the most peculiar.

As I discovered at today’s library Smokey Bear birthday party, that costume that Forest Rangers use when doing Smokey programming - it’s not a one person job!

While Ranger Emily was doing Smokey Storytime with the kids, Ranger Nate needed to use my office to change and become the famous bear. The costume is enormous! Before the program, the rangers had to haul in the huge, blue carrying case holding the costume.

Then Nate had to show me the various straps, zippers and buttons to fasten the thing onto him. Since Smokey is a federally run program, local rangers are given fairly strict guidelines about how to act and perform while Smokey. And Nat explained that sight-lines are also very poor inside the costume, so he’d also need my help getting out of the office and into the event room.

First, no pictures or looks at Smokey in half a costume. As Ranger Nate explained, the head coming off in the middle of a show could be “pretty traumatic” for a little Smokey fan. To that end, the head itself straps onto the shoulder straps inside the costume. So the head has to go on first, and then the costume is pulled up over the shoulders. I had to help Ranger Nate get his arms through, pull the main costume up and then zipper and Velcro the back of the costume up into the head.

The whole thing was surprisingly complicated, but the object of course was to present a seamless (literally) character for the kids.

Smokey and I managed to make it out to the kids without tripping over anything, and the total time that the character was out there was maybe 20 minutes. Not a huge amount of time, but enough to make an impact. Plus it’s 150 degrees in there!

Kids high-fived Smokey and took pictures and shared hugs. Even after 80 years, the forest fire prevention icon is still a hit among the pre-school set.

Smokey started as a real baby black bear, orphaned after the Capitan Gap fire in New Mexico in the spring of 1944. A group of soldiers sent from Fort Bliss to fight the fire found the cub howling in a tree with burns on his back paws and legs.

The original Smokey would live at the National Zoo in Washington DC for the next 26 years until his death. He received 13,000 letters a day and was granted his own zip code by the postal service.

After Smokey’s meet and greet, we run back to the office and reverse the process to get Ranger Nate out of the get-up while the kids in the event room scoop up book marks and buttons and cup cakes.

“Phew,” Ranger Nate says, “this is one of those things they don’t teach you about in ranger school!”

I can relate. It’s not everyday I have Smokey Bear in my office either!

New Mexico State game warden Ray Bell plays with a black bear cub orphaned after the Capitan Gap fire. A group of soldiers sent from Fort Bliss to fight the fire found the cub howling in a tree with burns on his back paws and legs.