Friday, August 09, 2013

It's Smokey Bear's birthday with a party on Twitter


It's Smokey Bear's birthday but this Boomer bear is keeping current as he celebrated with a party on Twitter Friday afternoon. From 1-2:00 p.m. @Smokey_Bear, the 69-year-old interacted with fans in an interesting mix of nostalgia and reminders of fire safety tips to prevent wildfires as birthday greetings came in from across the nation.

In what was the highlight of my day, my tweet was answered by Smokey and I got a virtual Smokey Bear hug! For just a moment or so I was six years old again.



And, oh yeah, I signed his birthday card, too.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of information gleaned from the exchange was the question, "Have wildfires increased over the last few year or has social media and TV coverage just made us more aware of them?"  Smokey's response: "Since 1950s, gone from 22 million wildland acres burned to less than 7 million today. There are differences in local conditions."

Smokey signed off from his birthday party on Twitter:

And he followed up with one last reminder....
Happy Birthday, Smokey! See you next year....

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