Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, silver linden is rated fire resistant on limited primary evidence.
The Forest Service’s eastern US selector gives silver linden the most favorable of its four Firewise ratings, which run from Firewise to Not Firewise. Ohio State’s extension service assigns “L flammability” on a five-band scale from very low to very high. Low falls on the recommended side of that scale. The systems use different language, but both favor the tree.
That agreement is useful but limited. The Forest Service selector covers the eastern United States, while Ohio State’s guidance is regional to Ohio and the Midwest and reflects its authors’ expert experience. These ratings support choosing silver linden for fire-conscious landscaping, but they should not be read as a guarantee that an individual tree cannot burn.
Ohio State also notes that silver linden suckers readily and is intolerant of wounds. The tree reaches about 45 feet at maturity and grows in part sun. Its cold hardiness extends to USDA zone 5a.
Form
tree
Mature height
~45 ft
Light
Part sun
Rated in
Ohio / Midwest; eastern US
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
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.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.
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.
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 prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated
Source taxon: Tilia tomentosa · 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.
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.
