The Junior Forest Rangers is a program of the USDA Forest Service that allows children to, after completing a booklet of activities related to outdoor skills, conservation, and forest fire prevention, receive a Junior Forest Rangers badge and identification card.

The Junior Forest Rangers program began in 1953, when a Smokey Bear

Smokey Bear

Smokey Bear is a mascot of the United States Forest Service created to educate the public about the dangers of forest fires. An advertising campaign featuring Smokey was created in 1944 with the slogan, "Smokey Says – Care Will Prevent 9 out of 10 Forest Fires". Smokey Bear's later slogan,...

 plush toy produced by Ideal Toys and sold by Macy’s department store came with a card that allowed children to contact Smokey and become a Junior Forest Ranger. In 1955 there were 500,000 Junior Forest Rangers, and Smokey Bear was receiving so much mail that in 1965 he was given his own zip code

ZIP Code

ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...

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The Forest Service re-launched the Junior Forest Rangers program in 2006 with a redesigned booklet, now called an “Adventure Guide.”