Sea-island landscaping after Pinnacle Mountain

The mountain burned. The brochure did not move. SCFC FY2016-17: Pinnacle Mountain Fire, Pickens and Greenville Counties, 10,623 acres, 28 days, largest in upstate history. SCFC’s 2005 Fire Smart list: hollies, junipers, yaupon, pines, eastern red cedar, Leyland cypress, and pine straw are highly flammable. Do not plant them adjacent to any wooden structure. Any plant will burn given sufficient heat. Ilex vomitoria currently computes as avoid and includes SC. Juniperus virginiana currently computes as avoid and includes SC.

You are on a sea-island lot putting yaupon and pine straw at the deck because the fire was in the mountains. The opened list still names saw palmetto, wax myrtle, and yaupon. Upstate smoke does not rewrite a 2005 column.

This is not a South Carolina doorway.

Why it matters

Two regimes sit in one state. Pinnacle Mountain is the upstate fire in the annual report. The Fire Smart sheet is the WUI landscaping list, including coastal genera. Southeast humidity is longleaf as a forest tree. NC Table 5 is a different high table. This page is SCFC’s two-column brochure after 10,623 acres.

Zone 0 is still not a planting list. The brochure says adjacent to any wooden structure.

This site’s South Carolina plant evidence combines 576 USDA occurrence records with 63 exact genus owners from SCFC’s Fire Smart list. The state surface keeps distribution, source-local fire evidence, and the brochure’s non-inclusive scope distinct.

How it works

What burned (FY2016-17 annual report):

• 2,062 wildfires, 25,709.5 acres.
• Pinnacle Mountain: 10,623 acres, 28 days, Pickens and Greenville. Help from 8 other states. Utah IMT. USFS aircraft. Largest in upstate history.
• Statewide that year: 27 homes destroyed, 24 damaged. Firefighters saved 1,895 threatened structures.
• The same report also prints a November 2017 Incident Meteorologist sentence for Pinnacle Mountain. This page quotes the line and does not pick a calendar.

What the 2005 Fire Smart list prints:

Highly flammable (ignite faster and burn readily):

• Shrubs: arborvitae, gallberry, hollies, junipers, podocarpus, saw palmetto, wax myrtle, yaupon.
• Trees: eastern red cedar, eucalyptus, Leyland cypress, pines.
• Groundcovers: pampas grass, pine straw.

Do not plant those adjacent to house, fences, or decks. The list is not inclusive. Low moisture, dead limbs, or stress change performance.

Less flammable “with some fire resistance”: ash, birch, oak, maple, magnolia, tulip tree; azalea, camellia, crape myrtle, hydrangea, rhododendron, rose, viburnum; daylily, iris, yarrow, yellow jessamine.

Any plant will burn given sufficient exposure to heat. Moisture-stressed plants are less resistant.

Fire-smart traits: less likely to ignite; burn less intensely; lower growing; not resinous, oily, or waxy; high moisture; easy to prune; less debris; open branching; drought resistant.

This directory:

• Ilex vomitoria avoid, SC.
• Ilex opaca avoid, SC.
• Juniperus virginiana avoid, SC.
• Pinus palustris avoid, SC. Forest longleaf is not a foundation pine on this list.
• Serenoa repens avoid, SC (saw palmetto).
• Check Morella cerifera before treating “wax myrtle” as a different taxon.

See how to read a plant page. The less-flammable column listing rhododendron is not a species-level pass for Rhododendron maximum.

The paths

What people mix up

• Upstate granite with lowcountry wax myrtle.
• 2005 Fire Smart with AG-874 Table 5.
• Hollies as a Christmas-decoration pass.
• Pine straw as mulch that the list already put in highly flammable.
• Rhododendron on the less-flammable column as R. maximum on-list.
• FY2016-17 acreage with a November 2017 weather sentence as two fires.

How to check

1. Open the Fire Smart PDF. Read hollies, yaupon, pines, pine straw. Read adjacent to any wooden structure.
2. Open the FY2016-17 annual report. Read 10,623 acres and largest in upstate history.
3. Open Ilex vomitoria and Juniperus virginiana.
4. Open South Carolina plant evidence. Distribution is not the brochure.
5. Do not plant in Zone 0.

Limits

This page quotes the opened 2005 SCFC Fire Smart PDF and the opened FY2016-17 annual report. It does not open a 2016 incident narrative beyond those two documents. The annual report’s November 2017 meteorologist sentence is quoted, not reconciled with the FY2016-17 fire summary. The 576 occurrence rows and 63 SCFC owners are directory counts as of this writing, not agency totals. Zone 0 is not a planting list.

Related records

• Ilex vomitoria
• Juniperus virginiana
• Pinus palustris
• South Carolina plant evidence
• Southeast humidity and Firewise planting
• Glossary: Zone 0