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Barberry is rated fire resistant, though several lists group its name with Mahonia or Oregon grape.
All six assessments place it on the favorable side. Pacific Northwest extension services list Berberis as fire resistant, and Oregon State University Extension profiles Berberis species among shrubs for a fire-resistant landscape. Fire Safe Marin includes the taxon among fire-resistant plants common to Marin County. King County’s forestry program lists Berberis species in its fire-resistant shrubs table.
The wrinkle is how the names are presented. King County labels its Berberis entry Oregon grape. The University of Arizona groups Oregon grape, Mahonia, and barberry under Berberis, while the South Carolina Forestry Commission pairs barberry with Mahonia in its less-flammable section. These sources still favor the listed plants, but their common-name groupings make the botanical name useful when identifying what is being considered. The Pacific Northwest extension listing gives barberry a hardiness range of USDA zones 4a to 8b.
Fire resistance is not fireproofing. Arizona’s extension service says the plants on its resistant list tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained. Fire Safe Marin also calls for suitable placement, spacing, irrigation, and removal of dead material. Barberry has consistent support across these regional lists, but its performance still depends on maintenance and its place in the surrounding landscape.
Form
shrub
Rated in
Dorset, United Kingdom; Greece; Marin County, California; OR/WA/ID +5
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Dorset, United Kingdom; Greece; Marin County, California; OR/WA/ID; Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho); South Carolina; Yavapai County, Arizona; southern Idaho / Intermountain; western WA
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 6 scopes across 6 cited fire sources
Marin County (CA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2019-01-01
The publication is explicitly limited to plants common to Marin County. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as Marin regional context while retaining its placement, spacing, irrigation, and maintenance boundary. It is not statewide California guidance or parcel suitability.
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.
King County's current wildfire page links this list for the Puget Sound Basin. FireApproved publishes 82 exact source owners as basin context, not statewide Washington guidance or a site-specific recommendation.
The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.
South Carolina Forestry Commission publishes this explicitly as its Fire Smart Plant List for South Carolina. FireApproved publishes 63 exact genus owners from 72 unique common-name labels; unsafe common-name mappings and duplicates are not broadened. The brochure calls the list non-inclusive and does not establish species-level or site-specific suitability.
Yavapai County (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2025-03-14
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension authors Bulletin 34 for Yavapai County. FireApproved publishes 198 exact source owners from its resistant and prone tables and keeps the county boundary visible. County publication scope is regional Arizona context, never statewide scope.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in ID, OR, WA.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 4–8.
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.
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 50' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Landscaping Can Be Attractive & FIREWISE: SHRUBS [SCFC Fire Smart plant-form sections] (with its recommendation)
Κανονισμός Πυροπροστασίας Ακινήτων εντός ή πλησίον δασικώ…: section 5.4.2, Table 2δi [greece-2023-particularly-flammable] (with its avoid rating)
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.
Listed as Oregon Grape, Mahonia, Barberry — Berberis sp.. The bulletin says fire-resistant plants tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, while fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely.
Listed as Barberry (Mahonia); Mahonia. The source says highly flammable plants ignite faster and burn readily; less flammable plants have some fire resistance.
