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Balsam fir

Abies balsamea · Pinaceae · all Abies records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context
No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence
2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Global; Ohio / Midwest; eastern US
Maintenance
No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source
  • Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
    • OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01

      Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in CT, DC, DE, IA, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in CT, IA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NY, PA, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Introduced / established
No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 2b; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status
Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here
No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context
Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context
Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Balsam fir (Abies balsamea)
Photo: (c) oksanaetal, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.
Form
tree
USDA hardiness
Minimum 2b; upper limit not documented
Mature height
~60 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
moderate
Current cited native range
CT, IA, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NY, PA, VA, VT, WI, WV
Grows in
CT, DC, DE, IA, IN, MA, MD, ME +12
Rated in
Global; Ohio / Midwest; eastern US
Family
Pinaceae
Evidence
10 cited sources

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

15

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

15 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • New Hampshire (NH)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New York (NY)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (1)

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Listed without a rating (8)

Fire-resistant trees instead

Red oak
Quercus rubra Basswood
Tilia americana Red maple
Acer rubrum Wild black cherry
Prunus serotina White oak
Quercus alba White ash
Fraxinus americana

Fire-resistant trees listed above

Same genus in the directory · the Abies group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Abies balsamea (Balsam fir). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/abies-balsamea/. Last verified 2026-08-23.