Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, crested wheatgrass is generally rated fire resistant, especially when it is properly placed and maintained.
Across six assessments, FireSmart BC approves it as fire resistant, while Utah State and Montana State extension services recommend it for firewise or fire-resistant landscapes. The University of Nevada’s extension service also includes it in a compilation limited to plants supported by at least two western sources. Together, those findings make a consistent case across British Columbia, the Great Basin, Utah, and the Northern Rockies.
The remaining recommendations answer a narrower question. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and Nevada extension identify crested wheatgrass as material for greenstrips, where vegetation is used to help manage wildfire spread. Nevada says such strips should be grazed or mown often enough for their purpose, so its finding depends on maintenance rather than the grass simply being present. Utah likewise says the plant can be firewise when properly used and maintained.
Crested wheatgrass is a low-water grass that reaches about two feet at maturity. Its fire-resistant rating is strong enough to guide a landscape choice, but it is not a promise that neglected growth will not burn. Keep it maintained and use it as part of a broader firewise layout, particularly if relying on its value in a greenstrip.
Form
grass
Mature height
~2 ft
Water need
low
Rated in
British Columbia; Great Basin; Great Basin / Intermountain West; Montana / Northern Rockies +4
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
The April 2022 MontGuide explicitly presents fire-resistant species adapted to Montana. FireApproved publishes 92 exact plant records from the source while retaining excluded genus, family, and unresolved rows; the guide itself says not every listed species grows in every part of the state.
University of Nevada Cooperative Extension compiled plants suited to Nevada climate zones and reported favorably by at least two upstream firewise lists. FireApproved publishes 126 exact source owners at Nevada publication scope. The source explicitly makes no independent flammability determination, so these rows remain corroborative.
Utah State University Extension states that this fact sheet selects examples for Utah landscapes and that they require proper placement and maintenance. FireApproved publishes 83 exact source owners at Utah publication scope. The table is not a site-specific planting clearance.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AK, CA, CO, CT, DE, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NH, NM, NV, NY, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, WY.
Native range
Introduced / established
29 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 4a; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
1 ecological invasive report.
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.
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.
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.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 20068, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
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.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 70' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ extended zone and beyond [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Fuel Breaks to Reduce Large Wildfire Impacts in Sagebrush…: common plant material option for a managed greenstrip in sagebrush ecosystems [nrcs-tn66-greenstrip] (with its recommendation)
Greenstrips: Another Tool to Manage Wildfire: common perennial plant used in a maintained northern Nevada greenstrip [unr-fs-97-36-greenstrip] (with its recommendation)
Forage Kochia Helps Fight Range Fires: species used in a semiarid western rangeland greenstrip [harrison-2002-greenstrip] (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.
Table 1 row: crested wheatgrass — Agropyron cristatum J. Gaertner, and A. desertorum (Fischer ex Link) Schultes. The article says these are species frequently used in greenstrips; it does not report a separate burn result for this row.
