Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Colorado blue columbine has mixed fire evidence despite repeated inclusion in regional Firewise plant lists.
The most detailed planting guidance comes from New Mexico's Forestry Division. Its blue-columbine entry marks every printed elevation yes, from 4,000 through 9,000-plus feet. It specifies moderate-to-high water demand, sun or partial shade, and a mature height of one to two feet. These are the conditions accompanying that state's recommendation for Aquilegia coerulea.
The Black Hills Firewise table also names the species among fire-resistive flowers and groundcovers, while Fremont County includes it in its Firewise ground-cover selection. Together those listings reinforce the favorable direction of the regional guidance.
A homeowner can therefore find this columbine in several fire-conscious planting references without converting their agreement into a settled primary fire-resistance verdict. Within those listings, New Mexico supplies concrete elevation and growing information for deciding whether the plant fits the site.
Form
groundcover
Rated in
Black Hills, South Dakota; Fremont County, Wyoming; New Mexico
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Black Hills (SD footprint); partial normalized coverage
The page explicitly limits itself to the Black Hills, and NFPA Firewise's archived 2006 plant-list index files it under South Dakota. FireApproved publishes 47 exact genus or species owners from 48 printed rows. This is bounded Black Hills context, not statewide South Dakota coverage or a finding that a plant suits a particular site.
Fremont County (WY footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-02-25
The source identifies itself as the Fremont County Firewise Plant List. FireApproved publishes its 92 exact source owners as Fremont County regional context. No methodology, current county endorsement, statewide Wyoming scope, or site-specific suitability is inferred.
New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY.
Introduced / established
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
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 72638, 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.
Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills: Flowers & groundcovers [black-hills-plant-form-table] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 5, Flowers and Ground Covers, p5-r08 [nm-emnrd-firewise-table-row] (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.
“Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Aquilegia coerulea — Colorado Blue Columbine”
Listed in the source's Ground Covers section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.
“Flowers & groundcovers: Colorado blue columbine — Aquilegia coerulea”
The introduction describes all table entries as fire-resistive plants that can be used in landscaping.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original sourceCorroborationCompilationlineage: csu-nmsu-firewise
“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”
Listed as Aquilegia coerulea (Blue columbine) in Flowers and Ground Covers. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=Y, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=Y, 9,000+ ft=Y. Water need: M-H; sun/shade: S/PS; mature height: 1-2’; approximate bloom: Jun-Jul.
