WASHINGTON—Admitting that his prior beliefs regarding conflagrations had been formed out of ignorance, longtime U.S. Forest Service icon Smokey Bear issued a statement Monday claiming that his views on wildfires had evolved. “You have to understand, when I was coming up in the ’40s, these fires were talked about in an almost entirely negative context, and I was just a dumb cub echoing the conventional thinking of the time,” said Smokey Bear, telling reporters that conversations with real estate owners and insurance carriers who had benefited from wildfires had convinced him to soften his stance. “I’ve always striven to live with integrity, and sometimes that means admitting that you were wrong. It’s clear to me now that the decimation of large sections of woodland by an out-of-control blaze is a far more nuanced issue than I had previously been led to believe. While I don’t think I’m ever going to be cheering on flaming infernos spreading throughout our nation’s parks, I now understand they have an important role to play in a healthy ecosystem.” Smokey Bear added that he would be joining fellow mascot McGruff The Crime Dog to petition Congress for more lenient penalties against arsonists. The post Smokey Bear Claims Views On Wildfires Have Evolved appeared first on The Onion.