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Spruce

Picea sp. (accepted: Picea) · Pinaceae · all Picea records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 5 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Alaska; Ashland, Oregon; California; Marin County, California; Utah; Western South Dakota; Yavapai County, Arizona
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 6 scopes across 6 cited fire sources

Protect Your Home from Wildfire — Fire Resistant Vegetation and Landscaping · Official scoped edition
- AK; partial normalized coverage · 2005-04-27
  Alaska Division of Forestry opens with the wildfire threat to Alaskans and publishes Alaska firewise-landscape examples. FireApproved publishes 58 exact source owners from its 60 taxon entries and holds the taxon-free fern label. State publication scope does not establish suitability for every Alaska climate, site, or home-ignition-zone placement.
Prohibited Flammable Plants (Ashland Municipal Code 9.04) · Official scoped edition
- City of Ashland (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26
  This is a City of Ashland adoption fact, not statewide Oregon guidance or an experimental flammability result. FireApproved publishes 24 taxonomy-safe owners as city-level regulatory context. It applies to new planting and propagation within 30 feet of structures, including structures on adjacent lots; it is not projected as a blanket removal order for every established listed plant.
Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County · Official scoped edition
- Marin County (CA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2019-01-01
  The publication is explicitly limited to plants common to Marin County. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as Marin regional context while retaining its placement, spacing, irrigation, and maintenance boundary. It is not statewide California guidance or parcel suitability.
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants · Official scoped edition
- CA; partial normalized coverage · 1997-07-01
  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.
Protecting Your Home and Landscape Against Wildfires · Official scoped edition
- Western South Dakota, Black Hills (SD footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2026-04-08
  The current SDSU Extension page explicitly addresses western South Dakota, particularly the Black Hills. FireApproved publishes its four exact genus owners. This is current bounded regional context, not statewide South Dakota coverage or a finding that every member of a genus behaves alike.
Fire-Resistant and Fire-Prone Plants Common to Yavapai County (Bulletin 34) · Official scoped edition
- 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 AZ.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: No hardiness value is normalized.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

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.

Spruce (Picea sp.) — Photo: (c) Alejandro Arguelles, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (CC BY-SA), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: tree
Grows in: AZ
Rated in: Alaska; Ashland, Oregon; California; Marin County, California +3
Family: Pinaceae
Evidence: 7 cited sources

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.

Prohibited Flammable Plants: new planting or propagation restricted within 30 ft of any structure [Ashland Municipal Code setback] (with its avoid rating)
Firewise Landscaping for Utah: PLANTS TO AVOID (PDF page 15) [ffsl-2007-section] (with its avoid rating)
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (with its avoid rating)
Protect Your Home from Wildfire: Characteristics of plants that ignite and burn readily [Alaska DNR brochure sections] (with its avoid rating)
Protecting Your Home and Landscape Against Wildfires: Intermediate Zone [Home Ignition Zone] (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.

Avoids (7)

Prohibited Flammable Plants (Ashland Municipal Code 9.04) — City of Ashland, Oregon (Fire & Rescue / Weed Abatement) · 2025 · original source Primary evidence Regulation lineage: pnw590-tree

“prohibited flammable plant” · original source

The City of Ashland restricts new planting or propagation within 30 ft of any structure, including structures on adjacent lots (AMC 9.04). Dwarf or prostrate varieties require Fire and Rescue approval, placement beyond 5 ft, and ordinance-compliant tree or shrub spacing.
Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County — Fire Safe Marin · 2019 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: partially-independent

“listed as fire-prone”

Fire Safe Marin lists this taxon among common fire-prone plants in Marin County.
Firewise Landscaping for Utah (2007) — Utah Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands / Utah State University Extension Forestry · August 2007 · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: usu-kuhns

“Do not plant these species in your firewise landscape, especially in Zone 2, or use them sparingly.”

The source identifies spruce among common tree pyrophytes in Utah landscapes.
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants — University of California Forest Products Laboratory · Internal Report 36.01.137 (July 1997) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: ucfpl-berkeley

“Not recommended by 4 references for use in high fire risk areas.”

1997 Landscape Vegetation Database row: Picea spp. (Spruce). Preserved UCFPL transcription marker: U4.
Fire-Resistant and Fire-Prone Plants Common to Yavapai County (Bulletin 34) — University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, Yavapai County · v1.2 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: unknown

“Fire-Prone Plants”

Listed as Spruce — Picea sp.. The bulletin says fire-resistant plants tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, while fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely.
Protect Your Home from Wildfire — Fire Resistant Vegetation and Landscaping — Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry, Community Forestry Program · April 2005 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: unknown

“Characteristics of plants that ignite and burn readily”

Named as a resinous plant example: spruce — Picea.
Protecting Your Home and Landscape Against Wildfires — South Dakota State University Extension · updated April 8, 2026 · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unknown

“Common flammable trees include junipers, pines, firs and spruces.”

The page names spruces among common flammable trees and discourages conifers in the immediate and intermediate zones.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Gambel Oak
Quercus gambelii

Quaking aspen
Populus tremuloides

Wild black cherry
Prunus serotina

Lombardy poplar
Populus nigra 'Italica'

Boxelder
Acer negundo

Thornless honeylocust
Gleditsia triacanthos

Fire-resistant trees listed above

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

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

Picea sp. (Spruce). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/picea/. Last verified 2026-08-23.