Since its assignment to the Department of Agriculture in 1905, one of the earliest duties of the U. S. Forest Service has been fighting forest fires.  Dubois, the home of the first National Forest, the Shoshone, has been part of that history since the beginning.

Fire fighting techniques on the Shoshone National Forest have not changed greatly in the past century.  While air support has been a welcome innovation, most work is still carried out by people on the ground. 

The tools of choice for ground crews are the shovel and the Pulaski, a specialized tool said to have been developed in 1911 by Ed Pulaski as a result of his experiences in Idaho’s Great Fire of 1910.  By 1913 one of the most effective wildfire fighting tools in existence was widely used throughout the Forest Service. 

Part of the Forest Service’s job has been prevention of forest fires as well as fighting them.  Before World War II, advisory signs were concentrated in forests, while during the war forest fires were seen as destroyers of a resource vital to the United States.  Posters were more emotional, vividly relating fire fighting to the war effort.

In 1944 Smokey Bear debuted as the official mascot for forest fire prevention.  In 1950 a bear cub found in a tree after the Capitan Fire in New Mexico was rescued and named Smokey, and the Forest Service had a living symbol of the need for fire safety.  The first Smokey the Bear book was published in 1955 and included the true story of the bear cub’s rescue.

Smoke jumping (parachuting to a forest fire) has been in use since 1940.  Smokejumpers have often been deployed on the Shoshone National Forest because of the rugged terrain and the lack of roads.