Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, Indian strawberry is consistently rated fire resistant by the sources that assess it.
Montana State and Oregon State extension services include it among recommended plants, while a Nevada extension compilation found support from at least two western sources. California compilations also report favorable fire performance across several references.
The agreement is broad, but it is not the same as a controlled burn test. The University of California Forest Products Laboratory compiled earlier plant lists and warned that many lacked a scientific basis or used undefined terms. The Diablo Firesafe Council likewise placed Indian strawberry among plants receiving favorable ratings from at least three references. These sources strengthen the practical consensus without explaining precisely how the plant burns.
Indian strawberry is a perennial in the rose family, rated fire resistant across recommendations developed for Nevada, Montana, Oregon, California, and the Willamette Valley. Oregon State lists it as a low groundcover and says most plants in that guide need some summer irrigation and healthy maintenance. Its stated hardiness is USDA zones 5a through 9b, and it has also been flagged as invasive in one jurisdiction. The fire-resistant verdict is well supported for landscape selection, provided the plant is maintained as the Oregon guidance requires and its local invasive status is checked before planting.
The guide presents itself as fire performance ratings for common landscape plants in a fire-prone California setting. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as republished California context. It is not an independent rating, a current endorsement, or parcel suitability.
The UC Forest Products Laboratory says the guide covers properties of common California landscaping plants and was prepared for California fire agencies. FireApproved publishes 130 exact owners at historical California publication scope. The report is a 1997 compilation, not a current endorsement, site rating, or independent test of every row.
The April 2022 MontGuide explicitly presents fire-resistant species adapted to Montana. FireApproved publishes 92 exact plant records from the source while retaining excluded genus, family, and unresolved rows; the guide itself says not every listed species grows in every part of the state.
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.
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 AL, AR, CA, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MD, MI, MO, MS, NC, NE, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WI, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 5–9.
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.
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)
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Mock Strawberry profile (PDF page 18) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (with its recommendation)
Fire Performance of Common Plants: Table 1 (favorable in 3 or more references) [diablo-guide-to-plants-three-reference-vote] (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.
“Fire-Resistant Plant Materials for Oregon”
· condition: green
Duchesnea indica (Mock strawberry) is listed under “Groundcovers 18 inches and lower”. The guide says most listed plants require some irrigation during Oregon's dry summer months and must be maintained in a healthy condition.
Fire Performance of Common Plants (Guide to Plants) — Diablo Firesafe Council · live page captured 2026-08-29 · original sourceCorroborationMirrorlineage: ucfpl-berkeley resolves to Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants
“Table 1: favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references (refs 8,9,11,12,25,40,41)”
The Diablo Firesafe Council Guide to Plants lists Duchesnea indica (Mock strawberry) as groundcover, perennial, in Table 1: plants with a favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references. The guide cites 7 of its 57 numbered references for this row (8,9,11,12,25,40,41). The guide states the ranking terms in its underlying references were mostly undefined and makes no attempt to rank within the list, and that fire performance is compromised without maintenance.
