Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Amur maackia is rated fire resistant, although one approving program says more research is needed.
All three sources that issue verdicts favor the tree. The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs give it the best rating on their four-step scale and describe it as a tree for dry environments. FireSmart BC also approves it as fire resistant, while attaching its research caution. In Northeast China, authors in Scientia Silvae Sinicae placed Amur maackia among the ten taxa with the best fire resistance after analyzing six traits of litter leaves.
A separate laboratory measurement adds context without creating another verdict. Live leaves that had not been predried reached flaming at 282°C in an ignition-temperature tester. FLAMITS preserves that figure but sets no universal threshold for turning measurements from different plant parts, devices, and experiments into resistant or flammable labels. The number therefore describes this particular test rather than overruling the three recommendations.
Amur maackia is a full-sun tree in the Fabaceae family, reaching about 35 feet at maturity and hardy to USDA zone 5a. For a homeowner choosing on fire resistance, the published judgments consistently support it, with FireSmart BC’s call for further research providing the main caution.
Form
tree
Mature height
~35 ft
Light
Full sun
Rated in
British Columbia; Global; Northeast China; eastern US
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
British Columbia; Global; Northeast China; eastern US
Maintenance
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, PA, 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
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: Maackia amurensis · 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 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.
2 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Shan2008: Shan, Y., Liu, N., & Shu, L. (2008). Flammability ranking of foliage species by factor analysis of physical and chemical pyric properties. Fire and Materials: An International Journal, 32, 371-382.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; site Shan2008-1; sampling ND.
“temperature at flaming (°C): 282”
FLAMITS record 12584; Ignitability measurement; device ignition temperature tester.
“calorific value (kcal/kg): 4317.63”
FLAMITS record 12585; Combustibility measurement; device calorimeter.
