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Water Birch

Betula occidentalis · Betulaceae · all Betula records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context
No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence
3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; British Columbia; Nevada / Great Basin; New Mexico; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance
No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 4 scopes across 4 cited fire sources
  • Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database · Official scoped edition
    • 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.

  • FireWise Plant List for New Mexico · Official scoped edition
    • NM; partial normalized coverage · 2003-10-08

      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.

  • FIREWISE Plant Materials for 3,000 ft. and Higher Elevations (AZ1289) · Official scoped edition
    • Arizona at or above 3,000 feet (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-12-01

      AZ1289 is explicitly limited to Arizona elevations of 3,000 feet and higher. FireApproved publishes 69 exact owners as regional Arizona context, retaining every water and elevation condition. It is never promoted to statewide low-desert guidance or an independent Tier 1 vote.

  • A Compilation of Good Plant Choices for Nevada's High Fire Hazard Areas (SP-05-16) · Official scoped edition
    • NV; partial normalized coverage · 2005-01-01

      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.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AK, AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AK, AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY.
Introduced / established
No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness
An exact source temperature is retained below the published zone scale; no zone is invented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status
Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status
Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here
No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context
Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context
Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
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.

Water Birch (Betula occidentalis)
Photo: (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.
Form
tree
USDA hardiness
Exact source temperature is below the published USDA zone scale
Mature height
~25 ft
Water need
high
Current cited native range
AK, AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY
Grows in
AK, AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, ND, NE +7
Rated in
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; British Columbia; Nevada / Great Basin; New Mexico +1
Family
Betulaceae
Evidence
5 cited sources

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.

Current native

15

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

15 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alaska (AK)
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • Colorado (CO)
  • Idaho (ID)
  • Montana (MT)
  • North Dakota (ND)
  • Nebraska (NE)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Nevada (NV)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • South Dakota (SD)
  • Utah (UT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wyoming (WY)

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.

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.

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.

Recommends (4)

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Fire-resistant trees instead

Quaking aspen
Populus tremuloides Boxelder
Acer negundo Thornless honeylocust
Gleditsia triacanthos Smooth sumac
Rhus glabra Lombardy poplar
Populus nigra 'Italica' narrow-leaf cottonwood
Populus angustifolia
Same genus in the directory · the Betula group page

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Betula occidentalis (Water Birch). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/betula-occidentalis/. Last verified 2026-08-23.