Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
No, live oak is not fire resistant; its high-flammability and at-risk ratings support keeping it away from structures.
NC State’s extension service rated live oak high on its older four-level scale, retained the high rating in its 2025 successor, and tags the species high in its Plant Toolbox. Virginia Cooperative Extension assigns it H on a high, medium, and low scale. The USDA Forest Service plant selector gives it an At Risk rating of 3 on a four-point scale ending at Not Firewise. Though the scales differ, each places live oak on the risk side.
The sources identify practical concerns as well as ratings. Virginia’s assessment notes leaf and acorn litter. The Forest Service selector says low-reaching branches can act as a ladder. FLAMITS gives a flame height of 33.6 centimeters for live leaves tested on a burning bench without prior drying. That result describes those leaves under those test conditions; the database provides no universal threshold for turning such measurements into landscape verdicts.
Live oak is a tree native to the Southeastern and South-Central United States and can reach about 100 feet at maturity. Its repeated high-flammability and at-risk ratings make it a poor fire-resistant choice near a building.
The complete three-table AG-874 plant list is explicitly for North Carolina and contains 202 low-, medium-, or high-flammability rows. FireApproved accounts for all source rows under its strict taxonomy and lineage rules; source scope does not establish local suitability at a particular North Carolina 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, DC, DE, FL, GA, LA, MD, MS, NC, NJ, OH, PA, SC, TX, UT, VA, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in AL, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TX, VA.
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 7b; 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.
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 8 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Quercus virginiana · 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 70526, 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] (mid-scale rating)
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: quercus-virginiana [nc-toolbox-flammability-facet] (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.
11 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Kane2008: Kane, J. M., Varner, J. M., & Hiers, J. K. (2008). The burning characteristics of southeastern oaks: Discriminating fire facilitators from fire impeders. Forest Ecology and Management, 256, 2039-2045.
Shared row context: fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Kane2008-1; sampling november and december.
“flame height (cm): 33.6”
FLAMITS record 5454; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves.
Shared measurement context: Sustainability measurement; plant part litter.
“flaming duration (s): 84.5”
FLAMITS record 5462.
“smouldering duration (s): 230.7”
FLAMITS record 5470.
“mass loss rate (g/s): 0.34”
FLAMITS record 5478; Combustibility measurement; plant part litter.
“burnt biomass (%): 70”
FLAMITS record 5486; Consumability measurement; plant part litter.
Primary study Mola2014: Mola, J. M., Varner, J. M., Jules, E. S., & Spector, T. (2014). Altered Community Flammability in Florida's Apalachicola Ravines and Implications for the Persistence of the Endangered Conifer Torreya taxifolia. Plos One, 9, 8.
Shared row context: plant part litter; fuel all; predrying no; device burning bench; site Mola2014-1; sampling may and june.
“flame height (cm): 33.5”
FLAMITS record 9237; Combustibility measurement.
“flaming duration (s): 84.5”
FLAMITS record 9254; Sustainability measurement.
“burnt biomass (%): 99.3”
FLAMITS record 9271; Consumability measurement.
“time to smouldering (s): 230.7”
FLAMITS record 9288; Ignitability measurement.
Primary study Safdari2018: Safdari, M.-S., Rahmati, M., Amini, E., Howarth, J. E., Berryhill, J. P., Dietenberger, M., Fletcher, T. H. (2018). Characterization of pyrolysis products from fast pyrolysis of live and dead vegetation native to the Southern United States. Fuel, 229, 151166.
Shared row context: Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device flat flame burner; site Safdari2018-1; sampling ND.
