Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, fireweed is fire resistant, with six sources placing it on low-flammability, FireSmart, Firewise, or wildfire-resistant lists.
Dovetail Partners rates fireweed low in flammability under a keyed method and allows plants in that class from 3 to 30 feet from a building. FireSmart BC approves it as a fire-resistant plant. University of Nevada Cooperative Extension includes it in a compilation that requires favorable treatment by at least two of seven named western sources.
Regional extension services reach the same practical conclusion. Michigan State University Extension considers fireweed wildfire resistant and recommends it for Michigan’s climate. Oregon State University Extension Service profiles it as a fire-resistant perennial for Willamette Valley growing conditions and gives it a hardiness range of USDA zones 2a to 9b. Fremont County Firewise includes it among the Firewise plants in its ground-cover section; the county describes those selections as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.
Fireweed is a perennial in the Onagraceae family. The sources arrive by different routes, including a keyed flammability rating, expert plant selections, and compiled lists. None places fireweed on the hazardous side, so the balance supports treating it as a fire-resistant landscape plant.
Form
perennial
Rated in
British Columbia; Fremont County, Wyoming; Global; Michigan / Great Lakes +5
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
British Columbia; Fremont County, Wyoming; Global; Michigan / Great Lakes; Nevada / Great Basin; New Mexico; Oregon (Willamette Valley); northeastern Minnesota; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 7 scopes across 7 cited fire sources
Dovetail applies the UF/IFAS flammability key to northeastern Minnesota natives and publishes placement for 38 exact source owners. FireApproved exposes those rows only as northeastern Minnesota regional context and preserves the 3-to-30-foot versus beyond-30-foot source placement.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, IA, ID, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
3 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.
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 Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 40' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Landscaping for Wildfire Defensible Space in Northeastern…: plantable 3-30 ft from a building [Dovetail Partners planting distance] (with its recommendation)
FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ extended zone (30-100 m) [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Fireweed profile (PDF page 52) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 5, Flowers and Ground Covers, p5-r17 [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 — Epilobium angustifolium — Fireweed”
Listed in the source's Ground Covers 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
“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”
Listed as Epilobium angustifolium (Fireweed) in Flowers and Ground Covers. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=N, 5,000 ft=?, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=Y, 9,000+ ft=Y. Water need: H; sun/shade: S/PS; mature height: 3’; approximate bloom: Jul-Aug.
3 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Sylvester1981: Sylvester, T. W., & Wein, R. W. (1981). Fuel characteristics of arctic plant-species and simulated plant community flammability by Rothermels model. Canadian Journal of Botany-Revue Canadienne De Botanique, 59, 898-907.
Shared row context: Combustibility measurement; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site Sylvester1981-1; sampling july to august.
