SMOKEY By Duncan Scott It was a windy spring day in New Mexico. A man was smoking a cigarette on Capitan Mountain in the Lincoln National Forest. After taking one last puff, he flipped the burning butt into the leaves and walked on. A thin spiral of smoke rose as the leaves smoldered. Then a tongue of flame leaped up, reached out for more fuel, and crawled slowly across the forest floor, growing bigger as it fed on leaves and underbrush. That's how a forest fire started in the Lincoln National Forest last May. Before the roaring hell had been brought under control, the flames had swept across 17,000 acres of forest and had destroyed 10 million board feet of timber. Charred black trees smoked where once a forest had flourished. In fighting the fire, 30 men nearly lost their lives. Trapped when the fire jumped across a ravine, they escaped death by huddling together on a rockslide until the flames had passed over. Their clothing was charred, their lungs filled up with smoke, but the next day they were back on the fire line. Wild animals in the forest were not so lucky. Thousands died. But one tiny bear cub lived. And that is how the story of Smokey began, the singed cub who became a national symbol of forest fire prevention—and paid a price for it. It was L. W. Simmons, a district game warden of New Mexico, who found Smokey. "I was going up the trail that morning, dropping off men along the fire line. All of a sudden I saw the cub. He was clinging to a small tree near the fire, chewing 22 REMEMBER – ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES! HOPALONG CASSIDY… THANKS FOR HELING PREVENT FOREST FIRES SMOKEY. Wild animals are the principal victims of forest fires, most of which are caused by careless people— campers who leave a pile of burning embers, hirers who toss lit matches to the ground, motorists who flick butts out the window, farmers who clear their fields by burning and leave them unguarded.