The guide presents itself as fire performance ratings for common landscape plants in a fire-prone California setting. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as republished California context. It is not an independent rating, a current endorsement, or parcel suitability.
The UC Forest Products Laboratory says the guide covers properties of common California landscaping plants and was prepared for California fire agencies. FireApproved publishes 130 exact owners at historical California publication scope. The report is a 1997 compilation, not a current endorsement, site rating, or independent test of every row.
Sun City Texas, Georgetown (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-01-14
The guide is authored for the Sun City Texas community in Georgetown. FireApproved publishes 142 exact owners only as community-level context. It is an archived HOA exhibit with unknown rating lineage, not a current statewide Texas source or an independent Tier 1 determination.
Travis County, Austin area (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2024-01-16
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension publishes this page through its Travis County horticulture program. FireApproved publishes 56 exact owners and retains the source's zone and warning conditions. This is county/Austin regional context, not a second statewide Texas table or site clearance.
Yavapai County (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2025-03-14
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension authors Bulletin 34 for Yavapai County. FireApproved publishes 198 exact source owners from its resistant and prone tables and keeps the county boundary visible. County publication scope is regional Arizona context, never statewide scope.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AL, AZ, CA, DC, DE, FL, GA, LA, MD, MS, NC, NJ, OH, PA, PR, SC, TX, UT, VI, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
11 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 8a; no upper limit is documented.
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 8 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Nerium oleander · 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.
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 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale 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)
Landscape for Fire Protection: irrigated hillsides [maire-1968-fire-protection-landscape] (with its recommendation)
Guía de pirojardinería: not suitable inside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its avoid rating)
Time to extinguish the exotic flame: Lessons from the 202…: Urban zone; Table 1 and deposited raw workbook [macalister-2025-leaf-flammability] (mid-scale rating)
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin: キョウチクトウ — Table 10-2 [tadaki-kira-1982-fire-protection-power] (with its recommendation)
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: nerium-oleander [nc-toolbox-flammability-facet] (with its recommendation)
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (with its recommendation)
Firewise Landscaping: Small Shrubs [Travis County Firewise page sections] (with its avoid rating)
Firewise Plant Guide: Avoid if Possible [Sun City plant-table sections] (mid-scale rating)
Yanan Orman Alanlarının Rehabilitasyonu ve Yangına Direnç…: Yangın önleyici tesisler; Dere vejetasyonlarının korunması [yardop-6976-operational-fire-resistant-planting] (with its recommendation)
Fire Performance of Common Plants: Table 1 (favorable in 3 or more references) [diablo-guide-to-plants-three-reference-vote] (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.
Nerium oleander (Oleander) appears in the source's conditioned examples for landscaping irrigated hillsides. Fuel volume is to be minimized, plants watered to their needs, and accumulated litter removed.
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin (人と森林) — Kyoritsu Shuppan; table reproduced by Kagoshima Prefecture · Hito to Shinrin (1982), Table 10-2; Kagoshima web reproduction · original sourcePrimary evidenceExpert-curatedlineage: independent (root of Japanese municipal fire-protection tree lists)
Table 10-2 prints キョウチクトウ in the large fire-protection-power class. The Kagoshima reproduction says highly fire-protective trees can slow spread, promote upward dispersal of heat and smoke, and intercept flying embers.
Listed as Oleander — Nerium oleander. The bulletin says fire-resistant plants tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, while fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely.
“güç yanan ve rüzgar perdesi oluşturan otsu veya odunsu bitkilerden — zakkum”
The YARDOP circular directs managers to preserve, encourage, or use this named taxon in fire-resistant or slow-burning forest and fire-prevention plantings.
Fire Performance of Common Plants (Guide to Plants) — Diablo Firesafe Council · live page captured 2026-08-29 · original sourceCorroborationMirrorlineage: ucfpl-berkeley resolves to Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants
“Table 1: favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references (refs 5,12,13,17,11,26,27,30,32,33,42, 40,41)”
The Diablo Firesafe Council Guide to Plants lists Nerium oleander (Oleander) as shrub, evergreen, in Table 1: plants with a favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references. The guide cites 13 of its 57 numbered references for this row (5,12,13,17,11,26,27,30,32,33,42, 40,41). The guide states the ranking terms in its underlying references were mostly undefined and makes no attempt to rank within the list, and that fire performance is compromised without maintenance.
The fiche's overall sensitivity combines experimental-bench inflammability, intensity, and combustion measurements with foresters' observations of fire damage.
Nerium oleander is rated “DESACONSEJADA” 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.
“Plants to Avoid for Zone 1 (within 30′ of Structure)”
Listed as Oleander-Nerium — Nerium oleander. The page says Zone 1 entries should be restricted to zones 2 or 3; all-zone entries are highly flammable due to volatile oils or growth habit.
The table rates Oleander — Nerium oleander med for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
Listed without a rating (31)Corroboration (31 rows from 1 source)
31 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Ganteaume2012: Ganteaume, A., Jappiot, M., & Lampin, C. (2012). Assessing the flammability of surface fuels beneath ornamental vegetation in wildlandurban interfaces in Provence (south-eastern France). International Journal of Wildland Fire, 22, 333.
Shared row context: plant part litter; fuel all; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Ganteaume2012-1; sampling summer.
Primary study Ganteaume2013: Ganteaume, A., Jappiot, M., Lampin, C., Guijarro, M., & Hernando, C. (2013). Flammability of some ornamental species in wildland-urban interfaces in southeastern France: laboratory assessment at particle level. Environmental Management, 52, 467-80.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device epiradiator; site Ganteaume2013-1; sampling summer.
Primary study Ganteaume2018: Ganteaume, A. (2018). Does plant flammability differ between leaf and litter bed scale? Role of fuel characteristics and consequences for flammability assessment. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 27, 342-352.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; device epiradiator; site Ganteaume2018-1; sampling summer.
FLAMITS record 3734; Sustainability measurement; fuel live; predrying no.
Primary study Molina2017: Molina, J. R., Martín, T., Rodríguez Y Silva, F., & Herrera, M. Á. (2017). The ignition index based on flammability of vegetation improves planning in the wildland-urban interface: A case study in Southern Spain. Landscape and Urban Planning, 158, 129-138.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device epiradiator; site Molina2017-1; sampling summer.
Primary study Molina2019: Molina, J., Lora, A., Prades, C., & Silva, F. R. (2019). Roadside vegetation planning and conservation: New approach to prevent and mitigate wildfires based on fire ignition potential. Forest ecology and management, 444, 163-173.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device epiradiator; site Molina2019-1; sampling july and september.
Primary study Terrei2019: Terrei, L., Lamorlette, A., & Ganteaume, A. (2019). Modelling the fire propagation from the fuel bed to the lower canopy of ornamental species used in wildlandurban interfaces. International journal of wildland fire, 28, 113-126.
Shared row context: plant part branches; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Terrei2019-1; sampling april to june.
Primary study Guney2022: Güney, C. O., Sar?, A., Cekim, H. O., Küçüksille, E. U., ?entürk, Ö., Gülsoy, S., & Özkan, K. (2022). An advanced approach for leaf flammability index estimation. International journal of wildland fire, 31, 277-290.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site Guney2022-1; sampling may and september 2017.
