Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Coralbells is rated fire resistant by several extension guides, with their regional growing conditions kept alongside the recommendation.
Montana State University lists Heuchera sanguinea among fire-resistant plants adapted to Montana. Michigan State's wildfire-resistant table names the same perennial and recommends it for Michigan's climate. This is agreement about the species, rather than a conclusion drawn from the coralbells common name alone.
Utah State adds an express condition: its listed plants can be Firewise when properly used and maintained. Oregon State's coralbells profile belongs to the fire-resistant perennials suited to Willamette Valley conditions. Both provide planting guidance whose intended setting matters.
For a gardener considering coralbells, these compatible recommendations support a favorable answer to the fire question. The plant belongs to the saxifrage family, and its selection should retain the region and care conditions of the guide being used. The agreement concerns fire-resistant landscaping choices; it does not require treating every growing region as interchangeable.
Form
perennial
Mature height
~1.5 ft
Water need
moderate
Rated in
British Columbia; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California; Michigan / Great Lakes; Montana / Northern Rockies +4
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Utah State University Extension states that this fact sheet selects examples for Utah landscapes and that they require proper placement and maintenance. FireApproved publishes 83 exact source owners at Utah publication scope. The table is not a site-specific planting clearance.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AZ, MI, NM, PA.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, NM.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
4 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.
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 location: PlantCharacteristics record 92051, 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.
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: Coralbells profile (PDF page 46) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: 40 ft minimum planting distance on flat terrain [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity: Fire Hazard column: low [tahoe-guide-2006] (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.
“low — Alumroot or Coral Bells — Heuchera sanguinea”
Table 1's Fire Hazard column prints “low” for this taxon. The guide calls the rating a rough estimate of potential flammability, not a result of scientific trials. Its footnote says plants that turn brown often become high fire hazards and tells readers to mow grasses and forbs when they begin to turn brown.
