United States / Grow / American mountain ash

American mountain ash

Sorbus americana · Rosaceae · all Sorbus records · also called American mountain-ash · Wikipedia

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, American mountain ash is consistently rated fire resistant by the forestry and extension sources that assess it.

Across five published assessments, every rating is favorable. The USDA Forest Service and participating state Firewise programs place it in the most favorable category on their four-level Firewise scale. NC State’s 2005 guide and its 2025 successor both rate American mountain ash low in flammability. Ohio State assigns it L on a five-point scale, while Virginia Tech also assigns L on its three-point scale. Each institution treats that rating as suitable for firewise landscaping.

The agreement is especially useful because the sources apply different regional scales rather than one shared scoring system. Most are expert-curated landscape guides, so their judgment concerns plant selection, not a laboratory promise that the tree cannot burn. Ohio State also describes American mountain ash as heat intolerant, and Virginia identifies it as a mountain-region plant. Those notes should stay separate from the flammability ratings.

American mountain ash reaches a mature height of about 15 feet and belongs to the rose family. It is native across parts of the Northeastern, Southeastern, and North-Central United States, prefers part sun and moderate water, and is hardy to USDA zone 5a. For homeowners choosing among landscape plants, its repeated low-flammability ratings make it a well-supported fire-resistant choice.

Form: tree
Mature height: ~15 ft
Light: Part sun
Water need: moderate
Rated in: NC; North Carolina; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic +1

On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
Fire ecology context
Placement evidence: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: NC; North Carolina; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Maintenance

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) · Official scoped edition
- NC; complete normalized coverage · 2025-03-26
  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.
Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
- OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01
  Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.
Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
- VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15
  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 CT, DC, DE, GA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Native range: Current cited native range in CT, GA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WI, WV.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 3a; 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.

Current native

20

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

20 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Connecticut (CT)
Georgia (GA)
Illinois (IL)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Maine (ME)
Michigan (MI)
Minnesota (MN)
North Carolina (NC)
New Hampshire (NH)
New Jersey (NJ)
New York (NY)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode I. (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
Tennessee (TN)
Virginia (VA)
Vermont (VT)
Wisconsin (WI)
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.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record sorbus-americana · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Sorbus americana · 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.
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record SOAM3 · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 3a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -38°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Sorbus americana · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 91750, 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] (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.

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

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

Sorbus americana (American mountain-ash). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/sorbus-americana/. Last verified 2026-08-23.