As a wildfire prevention specialist with the U.S. Forest Service, Gwen Beavans \u201988 frequently enlists celebrities to do fire-prevention public service announcements\u2009\u2014\u2009country music icon Dolly Parton, standup comic Jeff Foxworthy and the late actress Betty White among them. But the biggest celebrity of all is Smokey Bear, the agency\u2019s venerable mascot. Beavans lists \u201cmanaging Smokey\u201d among her job responsibilities, directing licensing and appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe is the national symbol for wildfire prevention,\u201d says Beavans, who lives in Manassas, Va. \u201cHe turned 75 a few years ago and we created some things for that, like an exhibit at the National Zoo in D.C. And we had him on the Today<\/em> show. \u2018Only you can prevent wildfires,\u2019 everyone knows that one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beavans, 58, began college wanting to focus on wind and solar energy, which took her into civil engineering. But forestry management seemed like a better fit, with environmental education emerging as Beavans\u2019 specialty. \u201cI\u2019ll go into a community for 14 days to assess, figure out the top fire causes, develop messaging, find someone local to give that message and try to get everybody working together,\u201d she says. \u201cIt always feels good when I get teams to collaborate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the headlines about out-of-control wildfires across the U.S. and Canada in recent years, it seems people are causing more of them than ever before. But that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The difference now is that the fires we do have are bigger and more intense.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve actually seen declines in the number of human-caused wildfires,\u201d Beavans says. \u201cThe difference now is that the fires we do have are bigger and more intense due to climate change, especially out West. The Southeast actually has more fires, they\u2019re just easier to put out because of higher humidity levels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, no region has a monopoly on carelessness when it comes to causing wildfires. \u201cNationally, nearly nine out of 10 wildfires are started by humans,\u201d she says. \u201cYou see some crazy things. Overheated cars parked in tall dry grass can start fires, or cars pulling trailers\u2009\u2014\u2009chains dragging on the pavement will send sparks into dry brush. All we can do is tell people, \u2018Don\u2019t do that!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n As a wildfire prevention specialist with the U.S. Forest Service, Gwen Beavans \u201988 frequently enlists celebrities to do fire-prevention public service announcements\u2009\u2014\u2009country music icon Dolly Parton, standup comic Jeff Foxworthy and the late actress Betty White among them. But the biggest celebrity of all is Smokey Bear, the agency\u2019s venerable mascot. Beavans lists \u201cmanaging Smokey\u201d among her job responsibilities, directing licensing and appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHe is the national symbol for wildfire prevention,\u201d says Beavans, who lives in Manassas, Va. \u201cHe turned 75 a few years ago and we created some things for that, like an exhibit at the National Zoo in D.C. And we had him on the Today<\/em> show. \u2018Only you can prevent wildfires,\u2019 everyone knows that one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beavans, 58, began college wanting to focus on wind and solar energy, which took her into civil engineering. But forestry management seemed like a better fit, with environmental education emerging as Beavans\u2019 specialty. \u201cI\u2019ll go into a community for 14 days to assess, figure out the top fire causes, develop messaging, find someone local to give that message and try to get everybody working together,\u201d she says. \u201cIt always feels good when I get teams to collaborate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given the headlines about out-of-control wildfires across the U.S. and Canada in recent years, it seems people are causing more of them than ever before. But that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The difference now is that the fires we do have are bigger and more intense.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve actually seen declines in the number of human-caused wildfires,\u201d Beavans says. \u201cThe difference now is that the fires we do have are bigger and more intense due to climate change, especially out West. The Southeast actually has more fires, they\u2019re just easier to put out because of higher humidity levels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, no region has a monopoly on carelessness when it comes to causing wildfires. \u201cNationally, nearly nine out of 10 wildfires are started by humans,\u201d she says. \u201cYou see some crazy things. Overheated cars parked in tall dry grass can start fires, or cars pulling trailers\u2009\u2014\u2009chains dragging on the pavement will send sparks into dry brush. All we can do is tell people, \u2018Don\u2019t do that!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gwen Beavans \u201988 works with Smokey Bear to spread the word about preventing wildfires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"backgroundColor\":\"aqua_400\",\"displayCategoryID\":10,\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"Gwen Beavans \u201988 works with Smokey Bear to spread the word about preventing wildfires.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,9],"tags":[1414,275,318,1412,1410,1413,1415,1411,1416,1199],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-5468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-act","category-newswire","category-stories","tag-betty-white","tag-college-of-natural-resources","tag-david-menconi","tag-dolly-parton","tag-gwen-beavans","tag-jeff-foxworthy","tag-national-zoo","tag-smokey-bear","tag-today-show","tag-u-s-forest-service"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":10,"name":"Class Act","slug":"class-act","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":10,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":61,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5468"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5554,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5468\/revisions\/5554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5468"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=5468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}By David Menconi<\/h4>\n\n\n\n