---
title: Prevent forest fires! Be sure your match is out
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/prevent-forest-fires-be-sure-your-match-is-out-1944/
description: 'Forest-fire prevention poster: a large painted hand holds a spent match against a yellow ground, under red headline letters drawn with flame edges.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Prevent forest fires! Be sure your match is out

[![Prevent forest fires! Be sure your match is out, 1944 US poster: Forest-fire prevention poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/prevent-forest-fires-be-sure-your-match-is-out-1944.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/prevent-forest-fires-be-sure-your-match-is-out-1944.jpg)

# Prevent forest fires! Be sure your match is out

Forest-fire prevention poster: a large painted hand holds a spent match against a yellow ground, under red headline letters drawn with flame edges, with 'Be sure your match is out' below. The tell is the flaming lettering over the small match, a fear-appeal tying an everyday act to wildfire.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
PREVENT
FOREST
FIRES!
Be sure your match is out
U. S. DEPT. AGRICULTURE, FOREST SERVICE
STATE FOREST SERVICE
[imprint:] ☆ U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1944 — O — 567014
```

[← Be careful what you say or write: "Please, get there ... and back!"](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/please-get-there-and-back-pin-up-security-1944/) [Prevent Forest Fires! Crush Out Your Cigarette →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/prevent-forest-fires-crush-out-your-cigarette-1944/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)