Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Alaska cedar is not clearly fire resistant because federal and state extension sources disagree about it.
The USDA Forest Service and state Firewise selector rates it 4, meaning “Not Firewise” on its four-point scale. Ohio State University Extension gives it an H flammability rating, which falls on the avoid side of its five-band expert scale, one step below the highest rating. Michigan State University Extension reaches the opposite conclusion, calling Nootka weeping cedar wildfire resistant and recommending it for Michigan’s climate. That makes the split two cautionary findings against one favorable finding.
The sources cover different regions and judge plants through different systems. The eastern Firewise selector assigns placement-oriented ratings, Ohio State applies ratings based on its authors’ expert experience, and Michigan uses a binary list of recommended wildfire-resistant plants. Those differences describe the boundaries of each finding, but they do not settle why the institutions disagree.
Alaska cedar is hardy to USDA zone 4a and needs moderate water. This Cupressaceae tree reaches about 30 feet at maturity. Those traits do not resolve its disputed fire performance. For a homeowner choosing plants with wildfire risk in mind, the safest reading is that Alaska cedar should not receive an uncomplicated fire-resistant label: Michigan supports it, while the eastern Firewise program and Ohio State advise caution.
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.
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 AK, CA, DC, DE, MD, NJ, OH, OR, PA, WA, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
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.
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: 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.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 15013, 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 avoid rating)
Firewise Landscaping: keep 30 ft from the home (Zone 3) [OSU B921 source-category siting] (with its avoid rating)
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.
