Oregon License Plates Will Feature Smokey Bear If Enough Sign Up

PORTLAND, OR – What better way to celebrate Smokey Bear's 75th birthday than making a license plate in his honor? Well, maybe something with a jar full of honey and some salmon.

Keep Oregon Green – a statewide nonprofit that works on reducing the number of fires caused by people – has designed a license plate with Smokey's image to help raise awareness about wildfire prevention.

The plates will also state: "Keep Oregon Green."

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If you're interested, you can't yet run down to DMV to get yourself some new plates (because who doesn't want to spend their holiday break rushing off to DMV?), there's a catch.

The state told Keep Oregon Green that to get the plates made, they need a commitment from at least 3,000 people to buy them.

So, Keep Oregon Green has set up a webpage where they are selling $40 vouchers.

If they get to 3,000, the plates will go into production.

"Each year, approximately two-thirds of Oregon's wildfires are human-caused and they are all completely preventable," Keep Oregon Green's CEO, Kristin Babbs says.

:Keep Oregon Green has been a household slogan since its inception in 1941, and this message is more important now than ever before. Wildfire awareness opportunities like this will help ingrain it in Oregonian’s DNA."

Babbs says that in 2018, 79 percent of the wildfires in Oregon were caused by people.

Image via Keep Oregon Green.