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Desert wheatgrass is rated fire resistant, but the evidence supports managed greenstrip use rather than a broad claim about every landscape.
Three expert sources place desert wheatgrass, or a crested-wheatgrass row that includes Agropyron desertorum, among plants used for greenstrips in the Great Basin and Intermountain West. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service calls it a common greenstrip option and describes it as a long-lived bunchgrass with rapid seedling vigor. The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension also includes it among common perennial greenstrip plants, with the condition that greenstrips be grazed or mown frequently. The Society for Range Management likewise identifies it as frequently used in greenstrips, but reports no separate burn result for the species.
That agreement supports the fire-resistant rating, though only on limited primary evidence. These sources are expert selections for semiarid greenstrip settings, not laboratory ignition tests or unconditional recommendations for planting beside homes. Desert wheatgrass is an introduced grass that reaches about two feet at maturity, requires moderate water, and is hardy to USDA zone 2b. It has also been flagged as invasive in two jurisdictions. Its wildfire value therefore does not settle whether it is locally appropriate; maintenance requirements and invasive status still need to be checked before planting.
Form
grass
Mature height
~2 ft
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Great Basin; Great Basin / Intermountain West; Northern Nevada / Great Basin
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Great Basin; Great Basin / Intermountain West; Northern Nevada / Great Basin
Maintenance
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AZ, CA, CO, IA, IL, IN, KS, MA, MO, MT, ND, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, SD, TX, UT, WI, WY.
Native range
Introduced / established
20 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 2b; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
2 ecological invasive reports.
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 20076, 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.
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.
“Common perennial plants used in greenstrips and selected characteristics important to their establishment and use”
Table 1 row: Standard Crested Wheatgrass (Agropyron desertorum). Minimum yearly precipitation: 10-12 inches; salt or alkali tolerance: Moderate; status: I; growth form, flower color, or season: Bunch; varieties: ‘Nordan’, ‘Hycrest’. The fact sheet says greenstrips should be grazed or mown frequently enough to reduce fuel buildup; otherwise their effectiveness is reduced dramatically.
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.