butternut

Juglans cinerea · Juglandaceae · all Juglans records · Wikipedia

Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Yes, butternut is rated fire resistant, although the primary evidence supporting that label is limited.

Five sources point in the same practical direction. The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs give butternut a Firewise rating of 1, the strongest category on their four-point scale. Ohio State University Extension rates it low in flammability on a five-band scale, while Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia Tech rate it low on their three-point scale. NFPA Firewise Communities also includes butternut among the plants homeowners can choose for Firewise landscaping.

FireSmart BC likewise names butternut a FireSmart-approved fire-resistant plant while flagging it as needing more research. The flag qualifies the certainty of the approval rather than reversing it. These sources use different scales and forms of curated guidance, yet they arrive at the same recommendation. That agreement makes fire resistance a reasonable landscaping classification, while the research caution argues against reading it as a guarantee.

Native to the southeastern, northeastern, and north-central United States, butternut is hardy to USDA zone 5a. This tree in the family Juglandaceae reaches about 25 feet at maturity and grows in full sun with moderate water. Its consistent ratings support choosing it as a fire-resistant plant, with FireSmart BC’s research flag kept in view.

Form: tree
Mature height: ~25 ft
Light: Full sun
Water need: moderate
Rated in: Arkansas; British Columbia; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic +1

On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
Fire ecology context
Placement evidence: 2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Arkansas; British Columbia; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Maintenance

Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources

Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
- OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01
  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 Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
- VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15
  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, AR, CT, DC, DE, GA, IA, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Native range: Current cited native range in AL, AR, CT, DE, GA, IA, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 3b; 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.

Current native

29

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

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

Alabama (AL)
Arkansas (AR)
Connecticut (CT)
Delaware (DE)
Georgia (GA)
Iowa (IA)
Illinois (IL)
Indiana (IN)
Kentucky (KY)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Maine (ME)
Michigan (MI)
Minnesota (MN)
Missouri (MO)
Mississippi (MS)
North Carolina (NC)
New Hampshire (NH)
New Jersey (NJ)
New York (NY)
Ohio (OH)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode I. (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
Tennessee (TN)
Virginia (VA)
Vermont (VT)
Wisconsin (WI)
West Virginia (WV)

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.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record juglans-cinerea · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Juglans cinerea · 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.
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record JUCI · 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: Juglans cinerea · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 70665, 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)
FireWise Plants offer colorful choices for Fire Safe Gardens: Scientific name / Common name / Comments table [arkansas-firewise-table] (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.

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

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

Juglans cinerea (Butternut). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/juglans-cinerea/. Last verified 2026-08-23.