Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Glossy privet is rated fire resistant overall, but the evidence does not amount to a simple yes.
Of six assessments, three support its use, two warn against it, and one places it between those positions.
Brazilian testing provides the clearest support. Pesquisa Florestal Brasileira rated glossy privet poorly flammable at VI 0, with a mean ignition time of 54.2 seconds and a flame duration of 2.3 seconds. A field trial reported by Revista Brasileira de Ciências Agrárias found that fresh shoots and oven-dried shoots re-exposed for 48 hours did not sustain fire, and the authors classified the plant as low flammability. Diputació de Girona and Bombers de la Generalitat de Catalunya recommend glossy privet for gardens, assuming species-specific care. Origin and invasiveness enter their qualitative judgment alongside maintenance and fuel structure, weighed together with fire research and fire-service experience.
The warnings address landscape risk. Eastern US Firewise programs give glossy privet their “Not Firewise” rating of 4. The NSW Rural Fire Service includes it among exotic vegetation groups associated with intense surface-fire behaviour and says such plants can increase bushfire intensity under adverse fire weather. The Tasmania Fire Service calls it moderately flammable and advises against placing plants in that group within the Building Protection Zone.
Small-scale tests of shoots and burn plots can support low flammability while regional programs reach a different judgment about vegetation during threatening conditions. Glossy privet is a tree reaching about 20 feet and is flagged invasive in two jurisdictions. Its fire-resistant rating is therefore qualified, not universal clearance for use close to a home.
Form
tree
Mature height
~20 ft
Light
Full sun
Rated in
Catalonia, Spain; Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil; Global; New South Wales, Australia +3
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.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AL, CA, DC, DE, FL, GA, LA, MD, MS, NC, NJ, OH, PA, SC, TX, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
2 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
2 ecological invasive reports.
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 6 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Ligustrum lucidum · 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.
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.
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 avoid rating)
Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rur…: should be avoided in the Building Protection Zone [Texas Building Protection Zone] (mid-scale rating)
Guía de pirojardinería: suitable inside or outside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its recommendation)
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: 50-60 ft minimum planting distance on flat terrain [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Planning for Bush Fire Protection 2019: Appendix A1.9 — Exotic vegetation [nswrfs-pbp-a1.9] (with its avoid rating)
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.
Fresh shoots and oven-dried shoots re-exposed for 48 hours did not sustain fire; freshly oven-dried shoots spread at 0.00413 m/s with 0.314 m flames and 24.288 kW/m intensity.
Ligustrum lucidum is rated “RECOMENDADA” by the guide's qualitative IUF garden-suitability method. The method assumes species-specific care and integrates fire evidence with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and expert fire-service experience.
“Under adverse fire weather conditions these plants can contribute to the intensity of bush fires.”
Appendix A1.9 identifies Ligustrum lucidum within its main exotic vegetation groups, reports intense surface-fire behaviour for these groups, and assigns them regulatory vegetation fuel-class conversions.
24 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Kovalsyki2017: Kovalsyki, B., Takashina, I. K., Tres, A., Tetto, A .F., & Batista, A. C. (2016). Inflamabilidade de espécies arbóreas para uso em cortinas de segurança na prevenção de incêndios florestais. Pesquisa florestal brasileira, 36, 387-391.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device epiradiator; site Kovalsyki2017-1; sampling ND.
Primary study Liu2013: Liu, M., Yi, L., Yu, S., Zhou, G., Jiang, H., & Li, X. (2013). Combustibility of fresh leaves of 26 forest species in China. Journal of Tropical Forest Science, 25, 528-536.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site Liu2013-1; sampling ND.
FLAMITS record 9696; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Murray2013-1; sampling march to april. Primary study Murray2013: Murray, B. R., Hardstaff, L. K., & Phillips, M. L. (2013). Differences in leaf flammability, leaf traits and flammability-trait relationships between native and exotic plant species of dry sclerophyll forest. PLoS One, 8, e79205.
Primary study Salvo2015: Salvo-Aires, F. (2015). Effects of woody weeds on fuels and fire behaviour in Eastern Australian forests and woodlands. PhD. Dissertation. University of Sydney.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Salvo2015-1; sampling ND.
Primary study Tian2003: Tian, X., Shu, L., & Zhang, X. (2003). Study on the influence of microstructure of trees twig and leaf on combustibility. Scientia Silvae Sinicae, 39, 8488.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Tian2003-1; sampling ND.
