Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Squirreltail cannot be called reliably fire resistant because published sources reach opposing conclusions about it.
Idaho Firewise gives this grass a fire-resistance score of 3 out of 10. On that source’s scale, 0 through 3 falls in the avoid range, with lower scores tied to greater minimum planting distances. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension in Yavapai County also puts squirreltail on its fire-prone list; the bulletin says plants in that category may ignite readily and burn intensely.
On the other side, FireSmart BC calls squirreltail a FireSmart-approved fire-resistant plant. University of Arizona Cooperative Extension guidance published in 2011 also lists it among fire-resistant plant materials for Arizona above 3,000 feet. Two Great Basin sources name bottlebrush squirreltail for greenstrips. Those findings apply to greenstrip placement, not as unconditional recommendations for home landscapes, and the Society for Range Management article reports no separate burn result for the species.
Squirreltail is a low-water grass, about 1.5 feet tall at maturity, native in the Southwestern, Northwestern, North-Central, and South-Central United States and hardy to USDA zone 2b. Its range does not settle the disagreement. The low score and fire-prone listing remain in tension with two fire-resistant listings, while greenstrip use answers a narrower question. For a homeowner, there is no simple yes: squirreltail has regional approval, but it also carries explicit fire-risk warnings.
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.
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.
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, CA, CO, DC, ID, IL, KS, KY, MO, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, CA, CO, ID, KS, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, WY.
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 2b; no upper limit is documented.
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.
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.
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.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 22420, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
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.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 80' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (with its avoid rating)
FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ extended zone and beyond [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Fuel Breaks to Reduce Large Wildfire Impacts in Sagebrush…: common plant material option for a managed greenstrip in sagebrush ecosystems [nrcs-tn66-greenstrip] (with its recommendation)
Forage Kochia Helps Fight Range Fires: species used in a semiarid western rangeland greenstrip [harrison-2002-greenstrip] (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.
Appendix B row: Bottlebrush Squirreltail (Elymus elymoides). Origin: Native; lifeform: Bunchgrass; relative height: Low; seedling vigor: Med.; longevity: Long. Precipitation zone: 8-18 in; soil texture: medium and coarse; seeds/lb: 220,000; single-species drill seeding rate: 7 lb/ac; seeding depth: 1/4-1/2 in. Recommended releases: Fish Creek, Toe Jam Creek, Rattlesnake, Pueblo, Wapiti, Pleasant Valley, Antelope Creek.
Table 1 row: bottlebrush squirreltail — Elymus elymoides (Raf.) Swezey. The article says these are species frequently used in greenstrips; it does not report a separate burn result for this row.
Listed as Squirreltail grass — Elymus elymoides. 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 without a rating (4)Corroboration (4 rows from 1 source)
