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Home / Guides / How to read a record / Crosstimbers and red flags

Crosstimbers and red flags

Last verified 2026-08-26.

This page is Oklahoma law.

Oklahoma Forestry Services will not hand you a standardized species table. SafeStayOK wildfire prevention (last modified 16 June 2026): all plants will burn under the right conditions. Placement is the most important criterion. Eliminate combustible vegetation within 0–5 feet. E-988: fire suppression increased eastern redcedar and ashe juniper. Separately, OSU Extension’s 28 August 2022 Grow column names Sedum and Helleborus as good choices and pine, juniper, and yaupon holly as highly flammable near structures. The state surface retains those five exact owners.

You are on the Crosstimbers edge, watching cedar close a prairie that used to carry fire, and asking Extension for the Ohio-style rated list. Live OFS says the rating does not exist. The wind sentence is in E-988, and it is about extreme wildfire conditions, not a nursery tag.

This is not an Oklahoma doorway.

Why it matters

“Give me the Firewise plants for Oklahoma” is easy to hear as a table. Live OFS refuses the table and points at placement. E-988 is a cedar-control circular that reprints Firewise.org’s 30-foot graphic. Those are not the same job as Ohio Bulletin 921’s VL–VH grades. Nebraska’s shelterbelt page is conservation plantings as a seed source. Missouri’s glades versus hedges is placement. This page is Oklahoma’s missing table plus the high-wind sentence in thick cedar.

Zone 0 is still not a planting list. OFS’s 0–5 band is the live forestry sentence. E-988’s Zone 1 still talks about fire-resistant, well-irrigated plants immediately around the house. Do not merge them.

This site’s Oklahoma plant evidence combines 437 USDA occurrence records with five exact OSU Extension source owners. OFS’s no-standardized-table guidance and OSU’s five prose examples remain separate claims on the same local surface.

How it works

What live OFS actually says (SafeStayOK, 16 June 2026):

Homes ignite from direct flame, radiant heat, or flying embers (up to a mile).
All plants burn. Environment and maintenance generally have more influence than the marketing label.
No consistent standardized flammability testing or rating criteria. Problems with definitions, test types, common versus scientific names, care, and regional testing.
Better to pick characteristics and location than a theoretical fire-resistant rating.
Native, pollinator-friendly, or drought-tolerant plants may or may not be more fire-resistant.
Placement is the most important criterion. Vegetation that touches siding, sits in front of windows, under eaves and vents, or under or near a deck increases the chance the home is destroyed.
0–5 feet: eliminate combustible vegetation and other combustible materials.
Zone One: 0–30 feet; islands of vegetation, broken continuity.
Trees: 10 feet between trees. Shrubs: distance double the shrub height. Lowest limbs six feet off the ground. If shrubs sit under trees, clearance is three times shrub height.
Combustible mulch: eliminate within 0–5 feet; from 5–30 feet it can burn and emit embers. Rock mulch. Compost mixed into earth is called a better alternative. Cites Quarles and Smith 2008.
Shade trees: move 5 feet away, prune lower limbs, no overhanging roof or deck.
No named species table. Contact OFS or a nursery.

What E-988 actually says (opened Digital Prairie PDF):

Fires active about 10,000 years until European settlement in the 1800s.
Fire suppression in prairies and shrublands increased fire-intolerant woody plants: eastern redcedar and ashe juniper.
Restoring fire, the historical driver, makes redcedar retreat to rock outcrops and canyons.
If cedar is thick enough that fire will not carry, it carries only under extreme wildfire conditions (high winds, low humidities, and high temperatures).
Firewise practices reprinted from firewise.org: at least 30 feet of clearing for fire-fighting equipment; remove ladder fuels that link grass to tree tops; prune lowest limbs six to 10 feet; four-zone graphic (Zone 1 immediately around the house still described as fire-resistant, well-irrigated, carefully spaced).

This directory:

Juniperus virginiana avoid, consensus, OK.
Juniperus scopulorum avoid, consensus, OK.
Juniperus ashei candidate, mixed-evidence, OK. Do not average it with virginiana.
Pinus ponderosa avoid, consensus, OK.
Ilex vomitoria currently computes as avoid and includes OK. OFS did not name it on the opened page.

See how to read a plant page. One verdict per juniper species.

The paths

Claim	Opened source	What it is not
Oklahoma has a standardized Firewise table	OFS: no standardized ratings; OSU: five prose examples	Bulletin 921
All plants burn	OFS 2026	A reason to ignore 0–5 feet
Placement over rating	OFS 2026	A xeriscape list as Firewise
0–5 feet, no combustibles	OFS 2026	E-988 Zone 1 still planting fire-resistant shrubs at the wall
30-foot clearing	E-988 Firewise reprint	Zone 0
High winds, low humidity, high temperature	E-988, thick cedar	An opened Red Flag Warning product
Cedar is fire-intolerant	E-988	A foundation evergreen
437 Oklahoma records	USDA distribution	An OFS palette
Grow 2022	Did not open	A quoted species list

What people mix up

Live OFS 0–5 with E-988’s Zone 1 still vegetated.
E-988’s 30-foot Firewise.org reprint with IBHS 0–5.
Nebraska’s seed-source shelterbelt with Oklahoma’s missing table.
Ozark cedar invasion FEIS bark-and-ladder sentences with E-988’s historical-driver fire.
Juniperus ashei (candidate) with J. virginiana (avoid).
Drought-tolerant with fire-resistant. OFS says they are not the same.
An NWS Red Flag Warning (not opened here) with E-988’s high winds, low humidities, and high temperatures.

How to check

Open OFS SafeStayOK. Read all plants will burn. Read no consistent standardized testing. Read 0–5 feet. Note the missing species table.
Open E-988. Read fire-intolerant cedar and ashe juniper. Read high winds, low humidities, and high temperatures. Read the 30-foot Firewise list.
Open the Grow column. If it loads, read it. This session it did not.
Open Juniperus virginiana and Juniperus ashei.
Open Oklahoma plant evidence. Distribution is not a recommendation.
Do not plant in Zone 0.

Limits

This page quotes opened OFS HTML (16 June 2026), the opened Digital Prairie E-988 PDF (metadata CreationDate 13 February 2007), and the official OSU Grow page read through a browser-backed web session on 26 August 2026. Command-line capture of OSU returned HTTP 403, so no local authoritative acquisition hash is claimed. Cross Timbers climate-change fact sheet NREM HTML also returned a Cloudflare challenge and is not quoted. The 437 occurrence rows and five OSU source owners are directory counts as of this writing, not OFS statistics. E-988’s high-wind sentence is not an opened NWS Red Flag product. Zone 0 is not a planting list.

Where this differs

Find what applies near you

Enter a ZIP before browsing the complete evidence. Matching, inherited, and place-neutral records will move first; other places and unmapped application rows will fold into expandable groups. Nothing is removed. All 2 cited place claims remain available.

E-988 eastern redcedar BMPs (Digital Prairie PDF)

Until European settlement began in the 1800s, human- and lightning-caused fires were active on the landscape for about 10,000 years. Farming and over-use by livestock fragmented the landscape and thus stopped large-scale fires. In prairies and shrublands, fire suppression resulted in an increase in both fire-tolerant woody plants (resprouters) and fire-intolerant woody plants such as eastern redcedar and ashe juniper. Eventually the eastern redcedar will become so thick that fire will not carry across the area except under extreme wildfire conditions (high winds, low humidities, and high temperatures). Restoring fire (the historical driver) to the ecosystem eliminates eastern redcedar as a problem and causes it to retreat back to its historical places in the landscape (rock outcrops and canyons). Firewise practices reprinted from firewise.org include a clearing of at least 30 feet around the house for fire-fighting equipment, removal of ladder fuels that link the grass to the tree tops, and a four-zone graphic in which Zone 1 immediately surrounding the house should be especially fire resistant, well-irrigated, and carefully spaced.

As of 2026-08-25 · Best Management Practices for Controlling Eastern Redcedar (E-988) — Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry - Forestry Services / Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service

Oklahoma Forestry Services SafeStayOK (16 June 2026)

While some plants are marketed and described as firesafe or fire resistant, all plants will burn under the right conditions, regardless of how they are classified. Years of plant testing studies determined that across the board there is no consistent standardized plant flammability testing or criteria for rating. It is better to focus on characteristics of the desired plant and the location where the plant will be placed over a theoretical fire-resistant rating. Placement is the most important criteria when it comes to fire-resistant plant selection. Through the incorporation of best management practices within 0–5 feet of a structure, eliminating combustible vegetation and other combustible materials reduces the potential that an ember can ignite a plant and reduces the potential for direct flame contact. Zone One is 0–30 feet from the structure. Check your local nursery, landscape contractor or contact OFS for advice on fire-resistant plants that are suited for your area.

As of 2026-08-25 · Wildfire Prevention — Oklahoma Forestry Services / Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry

Questions

Is wind the fire regime in the Crosstimbers?

E-988 (Best Management Practices for Controlling Eastern Redcedar; Oklahoma Forestry Services, OCES, USFS, ODWC, NRCS) says farming and over-use by livestock stopped large-scale fires, and fire suppression increased fire-intolerant woody plants such as eastern redcedar and ashe juniper. If cedar becomes so thick that fire will not carry, it will carry only under extreme wildfire conditions: high winds, low humidities, and high temperatures. That is the opened wind sentence. It is not a National Weather Service Red Flag Warning product. Restoring fire, the historical driver, causes redcedar to retreat to rock outcrops and canyons.

Does Oklahoma publish a Firewise plant table?

Oklahoma Forestry Services SafeStayOK does not publish a standardized rating table: all plants burn, placement matters most, and the first 0–5 feet should contain no combustible vegetation. Separately, Oklahoma State University Extension’s 28 August 2022 Grow column names five unambiguous genus examples. This site stores those five exact owners with statewide source scope while excluding the ambiguous common names ice plant and cedars.

Is a 30-foot Firewise clearing the same as Zone 0?

No. E-988 reprints Firewise.org practices: keep a clearing of at least 30 feet around the house for fire-fighting equipment, and a four-zone graphic in which Zone 1 immediately surrounding the house should be fire-resistant, well-irrigated, and carefully spaced. Live OFS (2026) tells you to eliminate combustible vegetation within 0–5 feet. Those are not the same band. Zone 0 is still not a planting list.

Is this an Oklahoma doorway page?

No. The object is a live forestry page that refuses a standardized rating table, an older E-988 Firewise reprint, and five bounded OSU examples. Place claims sit on whereThisDiffers. The Oklahoma plant surface keeps USDA occurrence, OFS placement guidance, and OSU source-local evidence distinct.

Sources

Wildfire Prevention — Oklahoma Forestry Services / Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry (official). Accessed 2026-08-25.
Opened HTML. Last Modified on Jun 16, 2026. All plants will burn. No consistent standardized plant flammability testing. Placement most important. 0–5 feet eliminate combustibles. Zone One 0–30 feet. Trees 10 feet apart; shrubs distance double height; six feet to lowest limbs. No species table. Contact OFS for plants suited to the area.
Best Management Practices for Controlling Eastern Redcedar (E-988) — Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry - Forestry Services / Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service (official). Accessed 2026-08-25.
Opened Digital Prairie PDF. Metadata CreationDate 13 Feb 2007. Fire suppression increased eastern redcedar and ashe juniper. Extreme wildfire conditions: high winds, low humidities, high temperatures. Firewise.org 30-foot clearing and four-zone graphic reprinted. Historical fire as driver; cedar retreats to rock outcrops and canyons.
Firewise Plantings Can Help Protect Property — Oklahoma State University Extension (official). Accessed 2026-08-26.
Official page read in a browser-backed web session; command-line capture returned HTTP 403. Sedum and hellebore are named as good choices; pine, juniper, and yaupon holly as highly flammable near a home or structure. Ambiguous ice plant and cedars are held.