Smokey the Sheep

(Santa Fe New Mexican) ... In the 19th century, livestock interrupted the cycle of frequent, cooler fires. “Historically the fires were just burning grass, so when the sheep came in and ate all the grass, there was nothing to burn,” Margolis said.
“We see fires actually stopped in this area in the late 1800s because that’s when the railroad brought a lot of livestock in.”
Then, starting in the 1940s, Smokey Bear’s mission to suppress all forest fires resulted in the buildup of brush and dead tree material that served as explosive fuel when big fires did occur. Continued