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Nuttall oak is rated fire resistant, though the conclusion rests on two practical plant guides rather than a broad body of research.
The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs give it the most favorable category on their four-part scale. Their selector identifies it as a south-central U.S. tree. A Sun City Texas Firewise table likewise rates “Oak, Texas Red (Quercus texana)” low for flammability hazard. That source defines the hazard as how readily a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged period. Its warning against planting within five feet of a building applies only to ratings above medium, so this low rating falls on the recommended side of its scale.
The two assessments therefore point in the same favorable direction, but they do not make the tree fireproof. They support treating Nuttall oak as a fire-resistant landscape choice on limited primary evidence. A mature Nuttall oak stands about 40 feet tall. This member of Fagaceae needs moderate water and full sun and is hardy to USDA zone 6a. Those growing requirements remain relevant even where its Firewise ratings make it a reasonable candidate.
Form
tree
Mature height
~40 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Georgetown, Texas; eastern US
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — 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.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AL, AR, DC, DE, IL, KY, LA, MD, MO, MS, NJ, OH, OK, PA, TN, TX, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 5a; no upper limit is documented.
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.
Source prints 6 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Quercus nuttallii · 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.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 70501, 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 recommendation)
Firewise Plant Guide: Hardwood 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 Oak, Texas Red — Quercus texana low for flammability hazard, defined as the ease a plant can burn at high temperatures for a prolonged time.
