Home / Plants / Grow / Fescue, Chewings

Fescue, Chewings

Festuca rubra · Poaceae · all Festuca records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: 1 condition stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: British Columbia; California; Global; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California; Marin County, California; Montana / Northern Rockies
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 4 scopes across 4 cited fire sources

Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County · Official scoped edition
- 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.
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants · Official scoped edition
- CA; partial normalized coverage · 1997-07-01
  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.
Fire-Resistant Plants for Montana Landscapes (MontGuide MT200101AG) · Official scoped edition
- MT; partial normalized coverage · 2022-04-01
  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.
Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01) · Official scoped edition
- Lake Tahoe Basin (CA, NV footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2006-01-01
  Nevada Division of Forestry and University of Nevada Cooperative Extension publish Bulletin 06-01 for the Lake Tahoe Basin and vicinity. FireApproved publishes 83 exact rated owners as basin context across Nevada and California. Rough estimates are not statewide or site ratings.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AK, AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, GA, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range: Current cited native range in AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CT, DC, DE, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Introduced / established: 2 sourced range or established records; set a location to match them. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 3b; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: 3 ecological invasive reports; set a location to distinguish exact from regional context.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

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.

Fescue, Chewings (Festuca rubra) — Photo: (c) Trevor Van Loon, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: grass
USDA hardiness: Minimum 3b; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~1.5 ft
Water need: low
Current cited native range: AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CT, DC, DE, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY
Grows in: AK, AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE +36
Rated in: British Columbia; California; Global; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California +2
Family: Poaceae
Evidence: 13 cited sources

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.

Current native

46

exact source areas

Current introduced

2

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

46 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Aleutian Is. (AK)
Alaska (AK)
Alabama (AL)
Arkansas (AR)
Arizona (AZ)
California (CA)
Connecticut (CT)
District of Columbia (DC)
Delaware (DE)
Georgia (GA)
Iowa (IA)
Idaho (ID)
Illinois (IL)
Indiana (IN)
Kansas (KS)
Kentucky (KY)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Maine (ME)
Michigan (MI)
Minnesota (MN)
Missouri (MO)
Montana (MT)
North Carolina (NC)
North Dakota (ND)
Nebraska (NE)
New Hampshire (NH)
New Jersey (NJ)
New Mexico (NM)
Nevada (NV)
New York (NY)
Ohio (OH)
Oregon (OR)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode I. (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
South Dakota (SD)
Tennessee (TN)
Texas (TX)
Utah (UT)
Virginia (VA)
Vermont (VT)
Washington (WA)
Wisconsin (WI)
West Virginia (WV)
Wyoming (WY)

2 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Colorado (CO)
Hawaii (HI)

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.

USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record FERU2 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 3b · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -33°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Festuca rubra · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 23137, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

irrigated: Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County evidence row

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.

FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ intermediate zone (10-30 m) [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity: Fire Hazard column: low [tahoe-guide-2006] (with its recommendation)
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (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 without a rating (8)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

8 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “time to flaming (s): 1.24” · score 1.24 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15941; Ignitability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “flaming duration (s): 28.226” · score 28.226 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15942; Sustainability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “smouldering duration (s): 101.552” · score 101.552 (FLAMITS — smouldering duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15943; Sustainability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “flame height (cm): 63.8” · score 63.8 (FLAMITS — flame height (cm))
  
  FLAMITS record 15944; Combustibility measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “time to flaming (s): 1.094” · score 1.094 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15945; Ignitability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “flaming duration (s): 13.1” · score 13.1 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15946; Sustainability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “smouldering duration (s): 6.61” · score 6.61 (FLAMITS — smouldering duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15947; Sustainability measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.
- “flame height (cm): 19.6” · score 19.6 (FLAMITS — flame height (cm))
  
  FLAMITS record 15948; Combustibility measurement; plant part whole plant; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Gao2022-1; sampling spring 2019. Primary study Gao2022: Gao, X., & Schwilk, D. W. (2022). Burn hot or tolerate trees: flammability decreases with shade tolerance in grasses. Oikos, 4, e08930.

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · ITIS

Festuca rubra (Fescue, Chewings). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/festuca-rubra/. Last verified 2026-08-23.