Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, black ash is rated fire resistant, although the supporting primary evidence is limited.
Three institutions reach the same favorable conclusion using different scales. The USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area and state Firewise programs give black ash Firewise rating 1, the most favorable level on their four-point scale. Ohio State University Extension rates it L for low flammability, one of its recommended bands. Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia Tech also rate it L, the recommended level on their three-point scale of how fire-prone plants are.
Agreement across those assessments strengthens the case, but it does not turn limited primary evidence into certainty. Fire resistant also does not mean fireproof. The practical conclusion is that black ash is a favorable landscaping choice by these published ratings, with more consistent expert support than experimental depth.
Black ash tolerates wet soils and periodic flooding, though it is heat sensitive and has high water needs. A tree in the Oleaceae family, it reaches about 50 feet at maturity and grows in full sun. Black ash is hardy to USDA zone 5a, with a native range spanning the Northeastern, Southeastern, and North-Central United States. A separate concern is emerald ash borer, which is destroying all native ash in infected areas; firewood there is quarantined.
Form
tree
Mature height
~50 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
high
Rated in
Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
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.
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 CT, DC, DE, IA, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, ND, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in CT, DE, IA, IL, IN, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, ND, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, VT, WI, WV.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 2a; 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 prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Fraxinus nigra · 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.
Minimum 2a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band
Exact source measurement: -47°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.
Source taxon: Fraxinus nigra · source identifier match.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 49771, 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.
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] (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.
