Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, flowering almond is rated fire resistant, with all three published assessments placing it on the safer side.
Ohio State University Extension gives the shrub a low rating on its five-point flammability scale, where low-rated plants are recommended. Virginia Cooperative Extension and Virginia Tech also rate it low, using a three-point scale based on how fire-prone plants are. Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia forestry agencies reach the same practical conclusion from a different kind of source: their compiled list calls flowering almond relatively resistant to fire and more resistant to wildfire ignition.
The agreement is reassuring, but the support is still limited. The Ohio and Virginia ratings are expert judgments, while the three-state list provides neither a comparative scale nor a method for this particular shrub. Those sources support choosing flowering almond as a fire-resistant landscape plant, but they do not promise that it cannot ignite under severe conditions.
Flowering almond is a shrub in the rose family and has been introduced in Alabama, Iowa, Michigan, and North Carolina. The sources describe it as adaptable and showy, while also noting that it can be weedy and sensitive to disease and insects. Its fire rating is favorable, but those other traits still matter when deciding where it belongs in a yard.
Form
shrub
Rated in
Maryland, New Jersey, and West Virginia; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic
Uses
specimen, hedge, foundation
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Maryland Forest Service says the list contains plants that can be grown in Maryland and identifies Maryland natives. FireApproved publishes 169 exact source owners from the 180 printed rows; an unrepresentable form and duplicate-owner rows are not broadened. The list calls itself non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every Maryland site.
NJ; partial normalized coverage
New Jersey DEP publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in New Jersey and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and does not establish suitability for every New Jersey site or override the Pinelands Commission's separate placement and fuel-break rules.
WV; partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26
West Virginia Division of Forestry publishes a state edition saying the listed plants can be grown in West Virginia and are relatively resistant to fire. Its same 180 printed taxon occurrences map to the 169 conservative owners already normalized for the template family. The list is non-comprehensive and provides no comparative or site-specific rating.
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 AL, MI, NC, OH.
Native range
Introduced / established
5 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
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.
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.
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.
Listed as Prunus glandulosa (Flowering Almond). The source says listed species exhibit stronger resistance to ignition by wildfires. Source comments: Very adaptable, showy, and weedy
