The USDA Forest Service is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Forest Service administers the 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands in the United States. Major divisions of the agency include State and Private Forestry, the National Forest System, and branch responsible for Research and Development.

The U.S. Forest Service has its origins in 1876 when Congress created the office of “Special Agent in the Department of Agriculture” to assess the state of the forests in the United States. In 1881, the office expanded into what became known as the Division of Forestry. Then in 1891, the Forest Reserve Act authorized withdrawing land from the public domain as “forest reserves,” managed by the Department of the Interior. In 1901, the Division of Forestry was formally renamed as the “Bureau of Forestry”. Early in the 20th century, The U.S. Forest Service gained its current title when the Transfer Act of 1905 transferred the management of forest reserves from the General Land Office of the Interior Department to the Bureau of Forestry. The Bureau of Forestry has been known as the USDA Forest Service ever since and is more traditionally referred to as the “U.S. Forest Service”.

Across the United States, there are 155 national forests, organized into ranger districts employing district rangers and other personnel. The districts construct and maintain trails, operate campgrounds, regulate grazing, patrol wilderness areas, protect culturally significant heritage sites, and manage vegetation and wildlife habitat. The Forest Service also has seven regional research stations, including the International Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products Laboratory, that study the ecosystems of the national forests, as well as other federal, state, and private lands. The Forest Service also provides funding and technical assistance to non-federal land owners through a branch called State and Private Forestry.

Although a large volume of timber is logged every year, not all National Forests are entirely forested. There are tidewater glaciers in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska and ski areas such as Alta, Utah in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. In addition, the Forest Service is responsible for managing National Grasslands in the midwest. Furthermore, areas designated as wilderness by acts of Congress, prohibit logging, mining, road and building construction and land leases for purposes of farming and or livestock grazing.

In August 1944, to reduce the number of forest fires, the Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council began distributing fire education posters featuring a Black Bear. The poster campaign was a success; the Black Bear would later be named “Smokey Bear,” and would, for decades, be the “spokesbear” for the Forest Service. Smokey Bear has appeared in untold TV commercials; his popular catch phrase, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires”, is one of the most widely recognized slogans in the United States. A recent study found that 95% of the people surveyed could complete the phrase when given the first few words.[3] Unfortunately, in certain fire-adapted ecosystems the ensuing decades of fire suppression unintentionally caused a buildup of fuels that replaced the historically natural fire regime of slow-burning, relatively cool fires with fast-burning, relatively hot wildfires in the fire-adapted forest lands across the nation.

Please visit http://www.wikipedia.org for more complete information on the U.S. Forest Service and for a list of important legislation that has helped shape the policies and administrative structure of the service.

To visit the U.S. Forest Service website, please point your browser to http://www.fs.fed.us/.