Please help! I need to develop a list of fire resistant plants, especially trees, hardy to zone 2.

I know farmers in the Altai region of Russia who want to replant forests destroyed by fire, as well as protect their own farms from forest fires. They are interested in agroforestry. To make things harder, for political optics, it would be best if a large percentage of the trees were evergreen conifers, which are generally not exceptionally fire resistant. The plan I am thinking of is to use the natural contours of the landscape as well as strategically placed protective belts of fire resistant forest guilds in conjunction with water-harvesting earthworks to protect the less resistant plants. But I am having real difficulty actually finding out which ultra-hardy trees, shrubs, bushes and groundcovers are fire resistant, and hence suitible for inclusion in these guilds. I'm turning to the wealth of knowledge you guys have stored up, for suggestions.

I'm having trouble thinking of useful, fire resistant conifers.  The best I can imagine is that by not having anything (conifers or otherwise) it would be a better fire protection system than having conifers around a house.

I'd also guess that something like hazelnuts might? be fire resistant in that if they burn they might resprout again.

This article might help.  The article offers 4 trees that are fire resistant though I don't know if they will grow or even are available where you live:

https://www.vintagetreecare.com/fire-resistant-trees-to-create-a-defensible-space

Mike, Alders fit into that category. They reliably resprout after fire in such conditions. I am less interested in this. I need varieties of groundcovers, herbaceous plants, bushes, shrubs and trees that don't tend to build up a large, dry fuel load, do increase humidity, have watery sap, preferably have thick bark and other such fire resistant characteristics, and that are hardy to at least USDA zone 2.

Manzanita, (Arctostaphylos) is a fire-resistant shrub that grows in my area. It doesn't qualify as a tree per say at my altitude, might be an option.

I can't help on specifics but found a couple of threads that have some useful links in...

https://permies.com/t/24169/wildfire/Wildfires-permaculture#193323
https://permies.com/t/50790/wildfire/Permaculture-fire-suppression#408993

Myron Platte wrote:Mike, Alders fit into that category. They reliably resprout after fire in such conditions. I am less interested in this. I need varieties of groundcovers, herbaceous plants, bushes, shrubs and trees that don't tend to build up a large, dry fuel load, do increase humidity, have watery sap, preferably have thick bark and other such fire resistant characteristics, and that are hardy to at least USDA zone 2.

Burr oak.

https://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/communities/description/10691/oak-openings#:~:text=Oak%20openings%20were%20found%20primarily,%2C%20late%20summer%2C%20and%20fall.

Hello,
What are the climate conditions and altitude ?

Mature Scots pines are pretty much fireproof (against low-intensity fires at least), but unfortunately not terribly useful for food. Wonder if some variety of white pine with nice nuts might be similarly resistant? Pure speculation, they're not native here...

My first thought was jack pine, because that's my local fire-dependent conifer (and grows in very cold conditions). But it's best to plant trees native to the area that have evolved with fire. That's going to be Larix sibirica.

I’m confused!  Seems like people are listing both trees that burn readily but are not killed…. these would carry the fire swiftly along.

Others are listing plants the are very resistant to burning.

Which are you looking for?

And here’s a shrub, rather than a tree, but it is planted to stop the spread of wild fires: immigrant kochia.  Bassia prostrata, also Kochia prostrata.  Native to central Eurasia

It survives cold winters, alkaline soils, arid conditions, and is a good winter forage plant.

Myron Platte wrote: But I am having real difficulty actually finding out which ultra-hardy trees, shrubs, bushes and groundcovers are fire resistant, and hence suitible for inclusion in these guilds.

If they are looking for ultra-hardiness, try designing by climate & latitude analog.

Your Russian farmers just need to find a similar region or a similar latitude that is subjected to constant fire, and then take a look at what life is struggling to survive there, yet resists, biologically adapts, and ultimately overcomes over time.

I can think of a country at the exact same latitude as Altai, just 3500km to the west that meets the above criteria.

I suggest Aspen as being fire resistant. Understory likely could be blueberry, cranberry, huckleberry in gaps. I would research local native species and leave fire guards around properties (large gaps with no trees) . Around buildings nothing too close. Use of Swales with ponds or dams according to topography and ability to use this water to hydrate subsoil and to be used in fire emergencies.

I take the question being asked to mean trees that are not pyrophilic, don't burn easily, and would help to reduce fire occurrence and severity in the system.

Conifers that are not fire-prone is quite a hat trick - don't think you'll find anything to fit the bill. Can't think of anything myself outside tamarack / larch, and those aren't evergreen anyway.

Your best bet would be to work with deciduous hardwoods. Most of the pioneer species like birch, poplar and alder will be more fire-prone as well, generating a lot of "fine fuels" as they colonize the landscapes, so you'd need to be looking at more quickly establishing stands of pinnacle species like oaks, chestnuts, walnuts, etc (using tree species I'm more familiar with - substitute with similar species for that region).

Looks like this isn't exceedingly far north - similar latitude to the northern great lakes region here in north america, plus some altitude due to the mountains. What sorts of winter low temperatures do you see in this region? negative 30 to negative 40*C sound about right? I'd imagine a dramatic temperature difference from place to place considering elevation changes, but a general average is good to have.

What's the annual precipitation? Are soils acid or alkaline on average?

A quick peek at google maps shows a lot of what appear to be agricultural fields in that area, mostly into the lowlands and valleys, spreading out into what appear to be "oak savanna" systems with grasslands and trees, then dense areas of conifers on the steeper mountain slopes.

What are the crops being grown on the farms? Were these farms more expansive in recent times and are being let run back to forest? If so, could this account for the preponderance of conifers? Do you know what the typical tree species were in the area before modern farming was introduced? What sorts of large mammals were in this area 1,000 to 3,000 years ago?

To reduce the risk of fire in a cool and humid climate like this, it really does come down to mainly the tree and plant species involved. Grasses and conifers will burn regularly, with both producing copious amounts of "fine fuels", while mixed hardwood stands will be far less likely to burn even in years that are drier than usual. From what I can see, we're not looking at a "British Columbia", "California-Colorado corridor" or a "New South Wales" type region here with extreme arid - this region looks much more like Ontario or Germany with some good sized mountains

Thanks, guys. Scots pine and Kochia are new ones. There is a Siberian larch that is apparently the most cold hardy tree in the world, that should do well. I’m not really expecting to find fire resistant evergreen conifers. To clarify: I need plants that are fire retardant. Not plants that survive getting burned, or that are fire dependent. I stated above the characteristics that tend to mark such plants. I will use these plants as well as well placed hydrological features to protect the conifers.

Living in a Fire Zone of the west coast of the USA, "fire resistant" only means that the plant is likely, not guaranteed, to come back after a fire.  It could be burned to the soil level and come back.  That's usually natives.

There aren't any plants that won't burn if a fire is hot enough.   I read about someone on our coast who was disgusted with the fires built a house of cement blocks, and it burned.

Sepp Holzer's mounds of dirt, that are created with a bulldozer, might make a difference.  Fires create their own winds, so their movement can't be predicted by the local winds that usually occur.

Water/rain/sprinklers, of course, makes a difference, but 5,000 gallons/23,000 liters is gone pretty quickly.  Plastic water tanks melt really fast.

Well, if you want something to make a fire barrier Scots pine might not be the best. They survive fire by keeping most of their branches high, out of reach of ground fires, and by having wood that won't burn while wet. However, any fire barrier made from living trees will probably have branches close to the ground. Once these are dried out by the fire, they too will burn.

If I understand it correctly, the goal is to (a) replant forest destroyed by fire, preferably with something that resists fire, and (b) protect their farms. Maybe it's hard to hit two birds with one stone here? Any tree will burn if subjected to an intense fire, and add fuel. Fire-adapted forests survive because there tends to be little fuel on ground level (since it's consumed by frequent low-intensity fires, that are kept at a low intensity by the lack of fuel...) which mostly keeps the flames low, burning moss and bilberry bushes, but leaving the canopy intact. So, with this in mind, maybe the way to protect the farms from fire would be to limit the amount of fuel next to buildings (ie, not many trees of any species) and replant with fire resistant species further out? Or replant with species where the trunk and branches will get killed off, but that will resprout from the roots? (I suspect this is how aspen trees among others survive fire. A couple years back, an old barn surrounded by aspen trees close to here burned. The trunks close to the fire died, but since aspen trees are suckering and clone-forming, the individual was just fine.)

If they want some fire barrier around the farms, beyond lack of trees, would it be possible to construct wetlands or ponds? Every home needs a moat, right?