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Yes, bear’s breech is rated fire resistant, with two independent expert guides pointing the same way.
Ohio State University Extension rates this perennial low in flammability, the second-lowest band on its five-point scale. Its assessment describes bear’s breech as long-lived and shrub-like, with slightly armed foliage. That places it clearly on the recommended side of the extension service’s scale.
The Diputació de Girona and Bombers de la Generalitat de Catalunya give the species their strongest positive verdict, “MUY RECOMENDADA.” Their garden-suitability method combines fire evidence and fire-service experience with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, and invasiveness. Because the method assumes care suited to the species, its judgment applies within that managed-garden setting.
The methods differ, but their conclusions agree. Other considerations remain: bear’s breech is introduced in California and has been flagged as invasive in one jurisdiction. Those facts may affect its suitability in a particular garden, but they do not change the favorable fire-resistance verdict.
Form
perennial
Rated in
Catalonia, Spain; Ohio / Midwest
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 CA, OH.
Native range
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
1 ecological invasive report.
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.
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.
Guía de pirojardinería: suitable inside or outside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (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.
Acanthus mollis is rated “MUY RECOMENDADA” by the guide's qualitative IUF garden-suitability method. The method assumes species-specific care and integrates fire evidence with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and expert fire-service experience.
