Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
No, cotoneaster is not fire resistant; two expert sources classify it as highly flammable and unsuitable near structures.
The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs rate Cotoneaster salicifolia “Not Firewise,” category 4 and the most severe category on their four-point scale. Although their description says the shrub can be espaliered on a wall, the Firewise rating argues against putting it there when wildfire safety matters. Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia Tech give it an H for flammability. On their three-point scale, H means the plant should be avoided.
The agreement is especially useful because the sources approach the plant through separate regional guidance for the eastern United States and Virginia. Cotoneaster is a member of the rose family that reaches about three feet at maturity, grows in part sun, and needs moderate water. Those landscape traits do not soften its fire classification. It is also flagged as invasive in one jurisdiction, which may present another reason to choose a different shrub. For defensible landscaping around a home, cotoneaster belongs away from structures.
Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
1 ecological invasive report.
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.
Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.
Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 88957, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
Not used for comparison: USDA PLANTS provides no duration for this record, so perennial hardiness applicability is unresolved.
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.
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (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.
