---
title: Help at home to win the war! Prevent range fires
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/prevent-range-fires-1941/
description: A small card headed 'Help at home to win the war!' lists three fire-prevention rules. Tagged by technique, with source and rights.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Help at home to win the war! Prevent range fires

**Content note:** Red caricature heads of two enemy leaders, one in a swastika cap and one with exaggerated glasses and teeth, captioned 'Our carelessness / their secret weapon'. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Help at home to win the war! Prevent range fires, 1941 US poster: A small card headed 'Help at home to win the war!' lists](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/prevent-range-fires-1941.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/prevent-range-fires-1941.jpg)

# Help at home to win the war! Prevent range fires

A small card headed 'Help at home to win the war!' lists three fire-prevention rules. Beside them are two red caricatured heads, one in a swastika cap and one in a round cap with glasses and teeth, captioned 'Our carelessness / their secret weapon'. Fire damage is tied to the enemy through the caricatures.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
HELP AT HOME TO WIN THE WAR!
RANGE FIRES damage and destroy forage; divert manpower from ranches and farms. Smoke interferes with the training of pilots and blinds them while on patrol. So—
NEVER BURN to clear land without a permit if laws require one; without scraping or plowing around for safety; without help handy.
STOP TO SMOKE in safe places during dry weather. Observe the rules in areas closed to smoking.
BE SURE that matches, cigarettes, and pipe ashes are cold and that campfires are dead.
OUR CARELESSNESS
THEIR SECRET WEAPON
PREVENT RANGE FIRES
U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service — State Forest Service
[handwritten: 44-PA-950]
```

[← You can plan and prepare balanced meals for your family](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/plan-and-prepare-balanced-meals-1941/) [After seeing these boys in the air and on the ground →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/rickenbacker-production-doubled-1941/)

## 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)