Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Austrian pine is not fire resistant; five sources advise avoiding it, with an overall finding of highly flammable.
The USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area and state Firewise programs rate it “Not Firewise,” the fourth and least favorable category on their scale. Ohio State University Extension assigns high flammability, the fourth band on its five-band scale. Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia Tech also rate it high, which maps to avoid on their three-point scale, although every evergreen tree and shrub they assessed received that rating.
European authorities reach the same practical conclusion through different approaches. The Diputació de Girona and Catalonia’s fire service rate Pinus nigra “very inadvisable” using a method that combines fire research, fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and fire-service experience. Greece’s environment ministry includes the species in its 2023 regulation among particularly flammable endemic trees and shrubs.
FLAMITS separately reports a 93.3 percent ignition frequency for predried Austrian pine branches tested with a grill device. That figure describes those branches under the stated test conditions, not the chance that a whole landscape tree will ignite. Austrian pine is a roughly 50-foot tree at maturity, grown in full sun with moderate water. The sources approach the question differently, but every institution that gives a verdict lands on avoidance, supporting the advice to keep Austrian pine away from structures.
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 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 DC, DE, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MO, MS, NJ, NY, OH, PA, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
3 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3a; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
1 ecological invasive report.
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 4 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Pinus nigra · 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.
Minimum 3a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band
Exact source measurement: -38°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.
Source taxon: Pinus nigra · source identifier match.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 15511, 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 avoid rating)
Firewise Landscaping: keep 30 ft from the home (Zone 3) [OSU B921 source-category siting] (with its avoid rating)
Guía de pirojardinería: not suitable inside or outside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (with its avoid rating)
Κανονισμός Πυροπροστασίας Ακινήτων εντός ή πλησίον δασικώ…: section 5.4.2, Table 2δi [greece-2023-particularly-flammable] (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.
Pinus nigra is rated “MUY 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.
71 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Cui2020a: Cui, X., Paterson, A. M., Wyse, S. V., Alam, M. A., Maurin, K. J. L., Pieper, R., ... Curran, T. J. (2020a). Shoot flammability of vascular plants is phylogenetically conserved and related to habitat fire-proneness and growth form. Nature Plants, 6, 355-359.
Shared row context: plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Cui2020a-1; sampling ND.
“ignition frequency (%): 93.3”
FLAMITS record 1458; Ignitability measurement.
“maximum sample temperature (°C): 534.9”
FLAMITS record 1652; Combustibility measurement.
“burning duration (s): 33.5”
FLAMITS record 1846; Sustainability measurement.
“estimated burnt biomass (%): 31.3”
FLAMITS record 2040; Consumability measurement.
Primary study Dimitrakopoulos2011: Dimitrakopoulos, A. P., Mitsopoulos, I. D., & Kaliva, A. (2011). Short communication. Comparing flammability traits among fire-stricken (low elevation) and non fire- stricken (high elevation) conifer forest species of Europe: a test of the Mutch hypothesis. Forest Systems, 22, 134-137.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site Dimitrakopoulos2011-1; sampling summer.
Primary study Jervis2012: Jervis, F. X. (2012). Application of fire calorimetry to understand factors affecting flammability of cellulosic material: Pine needles, tree leaves and chipboard. PhD. Dissertation. University of Edinburgh.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; device calorimeter; site Jervis2012-1; sampling spring.
Primary study Espinosa2020: Espinosa, J., de Rivera, O. R., Madrigal, J., Guijarro, M., & Hernando, C. (2020). Predicting potential cambium damage and fire resistance in Pinus nigra Arn. ssp. salzmannii. Forest Ecology and Management, 474, 118372.
Shared row context: plant part outer bark; fuel dead; predrying no; device calorimeter; site Espinosa2020-1; sampling ND.
