Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Cotoneasters are generally rated fire resistant, but one Spanish guide advises against them for fire-adapted gardens.
The split is five of six sources in favor. Valencia’s regional government recommends Cotoneaster among low-flammability hedge species, while Michigan State’s extension service considers the genus wildfire resistant for Michigan. Utah State lists compact cotoneasters as firewise when properly placed and maintained. Oregon State includes Cotoneaster species among fire-resistant broadleaf evergreen shrubs, while advising irrigation during dry summers and healthy maintenance for most plants in its guide. Arizona’s Yavapai County extension service also lists cotoneaster as fire resistant when irrigated and maintained, while warning that resistant does not mean fireproof.
The disagreement comes from Catalonia’s Girona provincial government and fire service. Their garden-suitability method advises against Cotoneaster after weighing not just published fire evidence, but also fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and firefighters’ experience. That is a broader question than simply asking whether a shrub tends to resist ignition.
So the favorable verdict is well supported across several climates, but it is conditional rather than absolute. Cotoneaster can reasonably be treated as fire resistant under the placement, irrigation, and maintenance assumptions stated by the western US extension services. The Catalan finding remains a serious caution where local guidance considers the shrub’s full garden behavior and management burden, not flammability alone.
Form
shrub
Rated in
Catalonia, Spain; Georgetown, Texas; Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; Mediterranean southeast France +5
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Catalonia, Spain; Georgetown, Texas; Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; Mediterranean southeast France; Michigan / Great Lakes; Oregon; Utah / Intermountain West; Valencia, Spain / western Mediterranean; Yavapai County, Arizona
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 7 scopes across 5 cited fire sources
Maryland Forest Service says the list contains plants that can be grown in Maryland and identifies Maryland natives. FireApproved publishes 169 exact source owners from the 180 printed rows; an unrepresentable form and duplicate-owner rows are not broadened. The list calls itself non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every Maryland site.
NJ; partial normalized coverage
New Jersey DEP publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in New Jersey and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every New Jersey site or override the Pinelands Commission's separate placement and fuel-break rules.
WV; partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26
West Virginia Division of Forestry publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in West Virginia and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and provides no comparative or site-specific rating.
Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.
Sun City Texas, Georgetown (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-01-14
The guide is authored for the Sun City Texas community in Georgetown. FireApproved publishes 142 exact owners only as community-level context. It is an archived HOA exhibit with unknown rating lineage, not a current statewide Texas source or an independent Tier 1 determination.
Utah State University Extension states that this fact sheet selects examples for Utah landscapes and that they require proper placement and maintenance. FireApproved publishes 83 exact source owners at Utah publication scope. The table is not a site-specific planting clearance.
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 MI.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
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.
Conditions in the fire evidence
These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.
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 Plants for Oregon Home Landscapes: Oregon [osu-frn6-oregon-regions] (with its recommendation)
Guía de pirojardinería: not suitable inside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its avoid rating)
Firewise Plant Guide: Shrubs [Sun City plant-table sections] (mid-scale rating)
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.
“Fire-Resistant Plant Materials for Oregon”
· condition: green
Cotoneaster species (Cotoneaster) is listed under “Shrubs—broadleaf evergreen”. The guide says most listed plants require some irrigation during Oregon's dry summer months and must be maintained in a healthy condition.
Listed as Cotoneaster — Cotoneaster 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 Cotoneaster spp. (Cotoneaster). The source says listed species exhibit stronger resistance to ignition by wildfires. Source comments: Tolerates wind, dry, poor soil; very pH adaptable
Cotoneaster spp. is rated “DESACONSEJADA” by the guide's qualitative IUF garden-suitability method. The method assumes species-specific care and integrates fire evidence with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and expert fire-service experience.
The fiche's overall sensitivity combines experimental-bench inflammability, intensity, and combustion measurements with foresters' observations of fire damage.
The table rates Cotoneaster — Cotoneaster species medium for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
