FireApproved

United States / Grow / red elderberry

red elderberry

Sambucus racemosa · Viburnaceae · all Sambucus 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.

Yes, red elderberry is rated fire resistant, but the support is limited and in Alaska depends on proper placement and maintenance.

King County’s forestry program includes Sambucus racemosa among the fire-resistant shrubs recommended for landscapes in western Washington.

Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources also names red elder as a plant that may be used in a firewise landscape. Its recommendation is conditional: the shrub must be placed and maintained appropriately. Both institutions therefore point in the same direction, but their findings are expert-curated landscape recommendations rather than numerical measurements of ignition or burning behavior.

Red elderberry is a high-water shrub that reaches about 18 feet at maturity. It is native across northern and several regions of the United States and is hardy to USDA zone 3b, fitting the northern regions addressed by these sources. For a homeowner, the sensible reading is that red elderberry is an accepted fire-resistant landscaping choice in western Washington and Alaska, while the Alaska guidance makes clear that the plant’s location and upkeep remain part of that judgment.

Form
shrub
Mature height
~18 ft
Water need
high
Rated in
Alaska; western WA
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Alaska; western WA
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Protect Your Home from Wildfire — Fire Resistant Vegetation and Landscaping · Official scoped edition
    • AK; partial normalized coverage · 2005-04-27

      Alaska Division of Forestry opens with the wildfire threat to Alaskans and publishes Alaska firewise-landscape examples. FireApproved publishes 58 exact source owners from its 60 taxon entries and holds the taxon-free fern label. State publication scope does not establish suitability for every Alaska climate, site, or home-ignition-zone placement.

  • Firewise Plants for the Puget Sound Basin · Official scoped edition
    • Puget Sound Basin (WA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-01-01

      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.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 3b; 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

39

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

39 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Aleutian Is. (AK)
  • Alaska (AK)
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • Colorado (CO)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • Georgia (GA)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Idaho (ID)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • Missouri (MO)
  • Montana (MT)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • North Dakota (ND)
  • New Hampshire (NH)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Nevada (NV)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Rhode I. (RI)
  • South Dakota (SD)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Utah (UT)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)
  • Wyoming (WY)

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 (2)

Corroboration (1 rows from 1 source)

  • Protect Your Home from Wildfire — Fire Resistant Vegetation and Landscaping — Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Forestry, Community Forestry Program · April 2005 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: unknown

    “Following are a few of the plants that may be used in firewise landscapes in Alaska if placed and maintained appropriately.”

    Listed as Red Elder — Sambucus racemosa; the source conditions these examples on appropriate placement and maintenance.

Same genus in the directory · the Sambucus group page

Last verified 2026-08-25. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

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

Sambucus racemosa (Red elderberry). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/sambucus-racemosa/. Last verified 2026-08-25.