Readers React: Smokey Bear needs a new slogan

Smokey Bear’s tagline — “Only you can prevent wildfires” — should be changed if his mission truly is to educate people about wildfires. In truth, there’s no preventing Mother Nature from undertaking the ecological housekeeping chores she’s performed for eons through lightning-ignited wildfires. (“Smokey Bear, nearly 70, gets a millennial makeover,” Business, May 13)

Over the last century, our forests have become ever more overloaded with vegetative detritus that would have burned at nature’s hand absent man’s dubious quest to suppress wildfires at any cost.

In recent decades, however, ecologists have documented that fire-suppression efforts typically increase the likelihood and intensity of wildfires. Hence, government policy lately has evolved to employ controlled burns to reduce wildfire threats.

It’s time for Smokey to adopt a more enlightened slogan: “Only you can postpone wildfires.”

Kendra Strozyk

Cameron Park, Calif.