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Spindletree is highly flammable and does not belong near structures, despite favorable findings from three of four sources.
France’s National Forest Office rates spindletree “forte,” or high, in overall fire sensitivity. That conclusion combines bench measurements of inflammability, fire intensity and combustion with foresters’ observations of fire damage. It directly examines fire behavior and supports classifying the shrub as highly flammable.
The favorable findings come from regional planting guidance. Fire Safe Marin’s guidance for plants common to Marin County includes spindletree as fire-resistant. Removal of dead material, irrigation, placement and spacing remain necessary under that guidance. Arizona’s cooperative extension lists Euonymus sp. as fire-resistant when irrigated and maintained. The South Carolina Forestry Commission places burning bush among less flammable plants with some fire resistance.
Curated and compiled lists offer practical landscaping guidance, while the French assessment joins experimental measurements with observed fire damage. Spindletree is a shrub in the Celastraceae family, but its form does not resolve that conflict. For planting near a building, the direct fire-sensitivity finding carries the stronger warning: keep spindletree away from structures.
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.
South Carolina Forestry Commission publishes this explicitly as its Fire Smart Plant List for South Carolina. FireApproved publishes 63 exact genus owners from 72 unique common-name labels; unsafe common-name mappings and duplicates are not broadened. The brochure calls the list non-inclusive and does not establish species-level or site-specific suitability.
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.
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.
Landscaping Can Be Attractive & FIREWISE: SHRUBS [SCFC Fire Smart plant-form sections] (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 as Euonymus, Burning Bush — Euonymus 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.
The fiche's overall sensitivity combines experimental-bench inflammability, intensity, and combustion measurements with foresters' observations of fire damage.
