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Silver buffaloberry is rated fire resistant by six sources covering several parts of the United States.
Extension services in Nevada, Arizona, Montana, and Michigan all place the shrub among plants suitable for wildfire-conscious landscaping. Nevada’s compilation includes plants favorably rated by at least two of seven named western sources. Arizona lists silver buffaloberry for elevations above 3,000 feet, Montana identifies it as a fire-resistant species adapted to the state, and Michigan considers it wildfire resistant and recommends it for that climate. Fremont County Firewise and NFPA Firewise Communities also include it among Firewise or fire-resistive plants for Wyoming and the Black Hills.
The agreement is stronger than any single listing, but these are practical selection lists rather than rankings of one plant against another. Fremont County Firewise places silver buffaloberry in its Large Shrubs and Trees section. The other sources likewise use binary lists: silver buffaloberry qualifies as fire resistant, but receives no finer grade.
Silver buffaloberry is a shrub in the Elaeagnaceae family. Cold hardiness reaches USDA zone 3a. The shrub needs moderate water and grows to about 15 feet at maturity. Taken together, the published guidance supports choosing it as a fire-resistant landscape shrub where the relevant regional and elevation conditions apply.
Form
shrub
Mature height
~15 ft
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; Black Hills, South Dakota; Fremont County, Wyoming; Michigan / Great Lakes +4
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Arizona above 3,000 feet / interior Southwest; Black Hills, South Dakota; Fremont County, Wyoming; Michigan / Great Lakes; Montana / Northern Rockies; Nevada / Great Basin; New Mexico; southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 8 scopes across 8 cited fire sources
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 (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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
University of Nevada Cooperative Extension compiled plants suited to Nevada climate zones and reported favorably by at least two upstream firewise lists. FireApproved publishes 126 exact source owners at Nevada publication scope. The source explicitly makes no independent flammability determination, so these rows remain corroborative.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, KS, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, NY, OR, SD, UT, WI, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, KS, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WI, WY.
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
2 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.
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 location: PlantCharacteristics record 87005, 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.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 50' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Firewise Plant Material for the Black Hills: Large shrubs & trees [black-hills-plant-form-table] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 3, Trees and Large Shrubs, p3-r34 [nm-emnrd-firewise-table-row] (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.
“Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Shepherdia argentea — Silver Buffaloberry”
Listed in the source's Large Shrubs and Trees section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.
The introduction describes all table entries as fire-resistive plants that can be used in landscaping. Printed-name correction used for exact matching: Sheperdia argentea -> Shepherdia argentea.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original sourceCorroborationCompilationlineage: csu-nmsu-firewise
“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”
Listed as Shepherdia argentea (Silver buffaloberry) in Trees and Large Shrubs. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=?, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=Y, 9,000+ ft=?. Water need: M; sun/shade: S/PS; mature height: 10-15’; approximate bloom: n/a.
