Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, winter creeper is rated fire resistant, with agreement from six wildfire-landscaping sources across several regions.
The numerical support comes from Idaho Firewise and Colorado State University’s extension service. Winter creeper earns 8 out of 10 on Idaho Firewise’s fire-resistance scale, placing it in the recommended band. Colorado State recommends only plants scoring 8, 9, or 10 for defensible-space zones 1 and 2; winter creeper meets that bar with an ignitability score of 8 out of 10. These scores are related rather than fully separate findings because Colorado State credits the Idaho materials as the basis of its scoring. In both systems, 8 is a recommendation grade, not a claim that the plant cannot burn.
The wider agreement is reassuring. Winter creeper appears in FireSmart BC’s approved fire-resistant chart and in the University of Tennessee Extension’s Firewise tables. Fire Safe Marin and King County’s forestry program also include it among fire-resistant landscape plants. That agreement reaches from British Columbia and western Washington to California and Tennessee.
Winter creeper is a groundcover that reaches about one foot at maturity and needs moderate water. Fire Safe Marin pairs its rating with advice that placement, spacing, irrigation, and removal of dead material still matter. It is also flagged as invasive in one jurisdiction, so local planting rules deserve a separate check even though its fire-resistance rating is favorable.
Form
groundcover
Mature height
~1 ft
Light
Part sun
Water need
moderate
Rated in
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Marin County, California; Ohio / Midwest +5
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Marin County, California; Ohio / Midwest; Tennessee; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US; southern Idaho / Intermountain; western WA
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 7 scopes across 7 cited fire sources
Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.
Marin County (CA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2019-01-01
The publication is explicitly limited to plants common to Marin County. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as Marin regional context while retaining its placement, spacing, irrigation, and maintenance boundary. It is not statewide California guidance or parcel suitability.
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.
King County's current wildfire page links this list for the Puget Sound Basin. FireApproved publishes 82 exact source owners as basin context, not statewide Washington guidance or a site-specific recommendation.
Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.
University of Tennessee Extension SP685 is Tennessee landscape guidance and publishes 78 represented plant owners. Most table rows are a carrier of Virginia Firescapes rather than an independent rating; Tennessee source scope does not change that lineage or establish site suitability.
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 AL, CT, DC, DE, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, MI, MO, MS, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WI, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
28 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 5b; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
3 legal-list records; the Place chip matches exact scope.
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
1 ecological invasive report.
Broader regional context
Federal context
Plant-specific legal-list reviews (1)
These source-bound review receipts are separate from ecological invasive reports. A source or plant identity change invalidates a receipt.
IN · Prohibited here. Designated prohibited in the reviewed Indiana 312 IAC 18-3-25 Prohibited Invasive Terrestrial Plants as of 2026-08-26. Authority: Indiana Department of Natural Resources; scope: state; as of 2026-08-26.Official reference.Normalized source record.
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 prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Euonymus fortunei · exact match.
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.
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] (mid-scale rating)
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 30' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Landscaping: do not plant within 5 ft of structures (keep out of Zone 1) [OSU B921 source-category siting] (mid-scale rating)
FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ intermediate zone (10-30 m) [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: suitable for defensible-space zones 1-2 (score 8+) [CSU defensible-space zone] (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.
Listed in the source's Groundcovers — Non-succulents table as Euonymus fortunei (Winter creeper).
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) — Colorado State University Extension / Colorado State Forest Service (Wildfire Mitigation Series) · 2025 · original sourcePrimary evidenceField programlineage: idaho-tree resolves to Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database
“ignitability score 8 of 10”
· score 8 (idaho-0-10)
CSU 6.305 table lists Euonymus fortunei (winter creeper) with the preserved ignitability score.
