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Mexican plum has mixed fire evidence: a favorable hazard score does not agree with the placement advice in another central Texas guide.
The Sun City Texas Firewise Group rates Prunus mexicana low. Its hazard scale concerns the ease of burning for a sustained period at high temperatures. This supplies a favorable judgment about the tree on that specific scale.
Travis County's Texas A&M AgriLife Extension page nevertheless includes Mexican plum among plants excluded from Zone 1. Its first zone encompasses the 30 feet nearest a structure, and plants on the list are directed to Zones 2 or 3. That is a concrete restriction for a gardener following the county's layout.
Mexican plum belongs to the rose family and is native in several eastern and central U.S. regions. Those identity and range facts do not decide between the Texas findings. The useful answer is to retain both: Sun City's low hazard rating and the county's instruction to keep this tree outside its closest landscaping zone.
Form
tree
Rated in
Austin, Texas; Georgetown, Texas
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
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.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, NC, NE, OH, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, WI.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, AR, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, OK, TN, TX.
Introduced / established
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.
Firewise Landscaping: Small trees/Large Shrubs [Travis County Firewise page sections] (with its avoid rating)
Firewise Plant Guide: Small Trees [Sun City plant-table sections] (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.
The table rates Plum, Mexican — Prunus mexicana low for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
“Plants to Avoid for Zone 1 (within 30′ of Structure)”
Listed as Plum, Mexican — Prunus Mexicana. 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.
