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Broadleaf stonecrop is consistently rated fire resistant, including by extension services in both Montana and Michigan.
Montana State University lists the species among fire-resistant plants adapted to the state. Michigan State University likewise considers it wildfire-resistant and recommends it for Michigan’s climate, where it is listed for USDA zones 6a to 9b. Broadleaf stonecrop is a groundcover in the Crassulaceae family, native to the southwestern and northwestern United States.
California sources reach the same practical result by compiling earlier recommendations. The University of California Forest Products Laboratory found broadleaf stonecrop recommended by three references for high-fire-risk areas. The Diablo Firesafe Council identifies broadleaf stonecrop as a succulent groundcover; its Table 1 placement requires favorable fire-performance ratings in three or more references. The council cautions that most ranking terms were undefined, a problem the university report also identifies alongside the frequent lack of a scientific basis in the underlying lists.
Even with those limits, the sources do not conflict. Two extension services directly recommend broadleaf stonecrop for fire-conscious landscaping, and two California compilations show repeated favorable treatment across earlier references. That makes fire resistant the sound overall classification, while leaving room for ordinary site and maintenance decisions rather than treating the label as a guarantee.
Form
groundcover
Rated in
California; Michigan / Great Lakes; Montana / Northern Rockies
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
The guide presents itself as fire performance ratings for common landscape plants in a fire-prone California setting. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as republished California context. It is not an independent rating, a current endorsement, or parcel 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.
Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.
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.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in CA, MI, OR, WA.
Native range
Current cited native range in CA, OR, WA.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 6–9.
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.
6–9 explicit range · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Sedum spathulifolium · exact match.
Source location: Table 1, groundcover row.
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.
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (with its recommendation)
Fire Performance of Common Plants: Table 1 (favorable in 3 or more references) [diablo-guide-to-plants-three-reference-vote] (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.
Fire Performance of Common Plants (Guide to Plants) — Diablo Firesafe Council · live page captured 2026-08-29 · original sourceCorroborationMirrorlineage: ucfpl-berkeley resolves to Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants
“Table 1: favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references (refs 11,15,25)”
The Diablo Firesafe Council Guide to Plants lists Sedum spathulifolium (Stonecrop) as groundcover, succulent, in Table 1: plants with a favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references. The guide cites 3 of its 57 numbered references for this row (11,15,25). The guide states the ranking terms in its underlying references were mostly undefined and makes no attempt to rank within the list, and that fire performance is compromised without maintenance.
