FireApproved

United States / Grow / golden currant

golden currant (Ribes aureum)
Photo: (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

golden currant

Ribes aureum · Grossulariaceae · all Ribes records · Wikipedia

View Saved

Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Golden currant has mixed fire evidence: several Firewise lists favor the shrub, but Idaho gives it a six-out-of-ten score.

The Idaho Firewise database records that score for Ribes aureum. This numerical assessment belongs alongside the favorable regional listings rather than being replaced by their recommendations. Golden currant's combined fire evidence remains mixed, so the listings alone do not establish a settled fire-resistant answer.

New Mexico's Forestry Division provides a particularly useful set of limits. Golden currant receives yes at 5,000, 6,000, and 7,000 feet; its cells at 4,000 and 8,000 feet are unknown or doubtful, and 9,000-plus is no. This FireWise recommendation consequently varies with the elevations printed in the table.

Fremont County and the Black Hills Firewise table also include golden currant among shrubs. Those favorable selections remain relevant without cancelling the Idaho score. For a homeowner comparing planting options, the evidence supports a cautious choice informed by the local elevation guidance, rather than a firm assertion that golden currant is fire resistant.

Form
shrub
Mature height
~10 ft
Water need
low
Rated in
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; Black Hills, South Dakota; Fremont County, Wyoming; New Mexico +1
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; Black Hills, South Dakota; Fremont County, Wyoming; New Mexico; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Typed publication scope: 5 scopes across 5 cited fire sources
  • Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills · Official scoped edition
    • Black Hills (SD footprint); partial normalized coverage

      The page explicitly limits itself to the Black Hills, and NFPA Firewise's archived 2006 plant-list index files it under South Dakota. FireApproved publishes 47 exact genus or species owners from 48 printed rows. This is bounded Black Hills context, not statewide South Dakota coverage or a finding that a plant suits a particular site.

  • Fremont County Firewise Plant List · Official scoped edition
    • Fremont County (WY footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-02-25

      The source identifies itself as the Fremont County Firewise Plant List. FireApproved publishes its 92 exact source owners as Fremont County regional context. No methodology, current county endorsement, statewide Wyoming scope, or site-specific suitability is inferred.

  • Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database · Official scoped edition
    • Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08

      The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.

  • FireWise Plant List for New Mexico · Official scoped edition
    • NM; partial normalized coverage · 2003-10-08

      New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.

  • FIREWISE Plant Materials for 3,000 ft. and Higher Elevations (AZ1289) · Official scoped edition
    • Arizona at or above 3,000 feet (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-12-01

      AZ1289 is explicitly limited to Arizona elevations of 3,000 feet and higher. FireApproved publishes 69 exact owners as regional Arizona context, retaining every water and elevation condition. It is never promoted to statewide low-desert guidance or an independent Tier 1 vote.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, WA, WI, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AR, AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, KS, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, TN, TX, UT, WA, WI, WY.
Introduced / established
11 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

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.

Current native

24

exact source areas

Current introduced

11

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

24 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • Colorado (CO)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Idaho (ID)
  • Kansas (KS)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • Montana (MT)
  • North Dakota (ND)
  • Nebraska (NE)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Nevada (NV)
  • Oklahoma (OK)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • South Dakota (SD)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Utah (UT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • Wyoming (WY)
11 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • West Virginia (WV)

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.

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.

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.

Recommends (4)

Corroboration (4 rows from 4 sources)

  • FIREWISE Plant Materials for 3,000 ft. and Higher Elevations (AZ1289) — University of Arizona Cooperative Extension · 2011 revision · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: csu-nmsu-firewise

    “listed FIREWISE plant material”

    Listed among fire-resistant plant materials for Arizona above 3,000 feet.

  • Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Fremont County Firewise · web page (server last-modified 2011-02-25) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unknown

    “Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Ribes aureum — Golden Currant”

    Listed in the source's Shrubs section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.

  • Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills — NFPA Firewise Communities · 2004 scan / 2007 archive · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: firewise-national

    “Shrubs: Golden currant — Ribes aureum”

    The introduction describes all table entries as fire-resistive plants that can be used in landscaping.

  • FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: csu-nmsu-firewise

    “FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”

    Listed as Ribes aureum (Golden currant) in Shrubs. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=?, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=?, 9,000+ ft=N. Water need: M; sun/shade: S/PS; mature height: 2-3’; approximate bloom: May.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

redosier dogwood
Cornus sericea American black elderberry
Sambucus canadensis redosier dogwood
Cornus sericea ‘Kelseyi’ red elderberry
Sambucus pubens red elderberry
Sambucus racemosa common snowberry
Symphoricarpos albus
Same genus in the directory · the Ribes group page

Guides that discuss this plant

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Ribes aureum (Golden Currant). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/ribes-aureum/. Last verified 2026-08-23.