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Plum is generally rated fire resistant by the sources that assess Prunus.
Extension services from Oregon State, Washington State, and the University of Idaho list plum as fire resistant, with suitability in USDA zones 2a to 6b. Montana State also includes it among fire-resistant plants adapted to Montana, while Louisiana State recommends the genus for firewise landscaping. A Nevada extension compilation found Prunus on at least two western source lists.
The same conclusion appears outside the western United States. The Tasmania Fire Service places plum in its low-flammability group, which it considers acceptable within the Building Protection Zone. King County lists Prunus species, identified there as cherry, among fire-resistant landscape trees.
These findings use recommendation lists rather than a shared numerical test, so “fire resistant” reflects repeated expert guidance across several regions. The sources differ in geography and labeling, but none gives plum a conflicting rating. On balance, plum belongs among the trees commonly recommended for fire-conscious landscaping.
Form
tree
Rated in
California; Florida; Japan; Louisiana +7
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
California; Florida; Japan; Louisiana; Montana / Northern Rockies; Nevada / Great Basin; OR/WA/ID; South Carolina; Tasmania, Australia; Yavapai County, Arizona; western WA
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 8 scopes across 8 cited fire sources
King County's current wildfire page links this list for the Puget Sound Basin. FireApproved publishes 82 exact source owners as basin context, not statewide Washington guidance or a site-specific recommendation.
LSU AgCenter calls these 31 ornamentals commonly used in Louisiana and recommended for Louisiana firewise landscaping efforts. FireApproved publishes 31 exact source owners, mostly at the source's genus grain. Undocumented curation remains corroborative and is not site 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.
The April 2022 MontGuide explicitly presents fire-resistant species adapted to Montana. FireApproved publishes 92 exact plant records from the source while retaining excluded genus, family, and unresolved rows; the guide itself says not every listed species grows in every part of the state.
The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.
South Carolina Forestry Commission publishes this explicitly as its Fire Smart Plant List for South Carolina. FireApproved publishes 63 exact genus owners from 72 unique common-name labels; unsafe common-name mappings and duplicates are not broadened. The brochure calls the list non-inclusive and does not establish species-level or site-specific suitability.
University of Nevada Cooperative Extension compiled plants suited to Nevada climate zones and reported favorably by at least two upstream firewise lists. FireApproved publishes 126 exact source owners at Nevada publication scope. The source explicitly makes no independent flammability determination, so these rows remain corroborative.
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 ID, OR, WA.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 2–6.
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.
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.
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.
Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rur…: acceptable in the Building Protection Zone [Texas Building Protection Zone] (with its recommendation)
Landscaping in Florida with Fire in Mind: inside defensible space [ufifas-for71-defensible-space] (with its recommendation)
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin: サクラ類 — Table 10-2 [tadaki-kira-1982-fire-protection-power] (mid-scale rating)
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (with its recommendation)
Landscaping Can Be Attractive & FIREWISE: TREES [SCFC Fire Smart plant-form 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.
Listed as Pear (ornamental) — Prunus sp.; Purple leaf plum — Prunus 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.
Listed as Cherry; Plum. The source says highly flammable plants ignite faster and burn readily; less flammable plants have some fire resistance.
Mid-scale / conditional (1)
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 サクラ類 in the small 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.
