Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Rabbitbrush is rated fire resistant overall, although one Arizona extension service classifies it as fire-prone.
Four regional sources place this shrub among Firewise or fire-resistant plants. The University of Arizona lists it for Arizona above 3,000 feet, Oregon State University Extension includes it for Willamette Valley growing conditions, and Fremont County Firewise includes it in Wyoming. New Mexico’s Forestry Division describes rabbitbrush’s water needs as very low to low and recommends it for elevations of 4,000, 5,000, 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 and 9,000-plus feet. These sources support the overall rating, but their guidance applies to named regions and conditions rather than every setting.
The disagreement comes from the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension in Yavapai County, which places rabbitbrush on its fire-prone list. The bulletin describes irrigated, maintained plants on its resistant list as tending to resist ignition. Rabbitbrush instead falls under its warning that fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely. The University of Nevada Cooperative Extension also records disagreement among reviewers in its western-source compilation.
The sources use different list designs. Several sources offer only an affirmative Firewise list, while Yavapai County separates resistant plants from fire-prone ones. Rabbitbrush therefore has credible regional support as fire resistant, but the Yavapai County finding means the label should not be treated as a guarantee.
Form
shrub
Rated in
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; Fremont County, Wyoming; Nevada / Great Basin; New Mexico +2
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
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.
Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01
OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.
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.
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.
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 AZ.
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-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Rabbitbrush profile (PDF page 147) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 4, Shrubs, p4-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 — Chrysothamnus spp. — Rabbitbrush”
Listed in the source's Shrubs section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.
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
Listed as Rabbit brush — Chrysothamnus 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.
