Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Freeman's maple is generally rated fire resistant, though one source calls it moderately Firewise.
Across four assessments, Ohio State University Extension gives Freeman's maple a low rating on its five-point flammability scale. Oregon State University Extension includes red maple hybrids such as Acer x freemanii in its fire-resistant plant guidance. The ACT Government’s live plant selector also marks the ‘Autumn Blaze’ cultivar “Fire Retardant: Yes.”
The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs offer the most cautious finding: “Moderately Firewise,” or 2 on a scale where 1 is Firewise and 4 is Not Firewise. That does not contradict the other sources so much as narrow the strength of the claim. These systems use different categories, from low flammability to a simple yes-or-no recommendation, and none describes Freeman's maple as at risk or not Firewise.
Freeman's maple is a roughly 50-foot tree in the Sapindaceae family, grown in full sun and hardy to USDA zone 5a. The practical conclusion is favorable but measured: the balance supports calling the tree fire resistant, while “moderately Firewise” is a better description than treating it as the strongest possible choice.
Form
tree
Mature height
~50 ft
Light
Full sun
Rated in
Australian Capital Territory, Australia; Ohio / Midwest; Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho); eastern US
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
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 DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 3–9.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
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.
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.
Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Acer x freemanii · exact match.
Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.
Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
3–9 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Acer x freemanii · exact match.
Source location: Red maple profile, USDA hardiness zones field.
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.
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
Fire-resistant plant profile galleries: Red maple — Acer x freemanii [osu-2023-trees-gallery] (with its recommendation)
Canberra Plant Selector: filtered result page 12 [canberra-selector] (with its recommendation)
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.
