An illustrator for the U.S. Forest Service, Rossoll came up with the “Smokey [the] Bear” character in 1944 after rejecting images of a forest ranger and a beaver. The image of the ranger hat-wearing Smokey has graced forest fire prevention campaigns and other Forest Service materials since.
The cartoon was not named after the real bear cub found clinging to a burned tree after a fire; that bear was named after the cartoon (it was found in 1950, and lived in the National Zoo in Washington D.C. for 26 years). Rossoll died in Atlanta February 25 of an abdominal aneurysm at age 89.