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Bigleaf maple

Acer macrophyllum · Sapindaceae · all Acer records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions
1 condition stated in cited fire-evidence rows.
Fire ecology context
3 cited FEIS topics across 3 dimensions; context only, never a rating vote.
Placement evidence
3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
British Columbia; OR/WA/ID; Oregon; Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho); SoCal; eastern WA
Maintenance
No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Fire-Resistant Plants for Home Landscapes (PNW 590) · Official scoped edition
    • ID, OR, WA; partial normalized coverage · 2023-10-01

      The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.

  • Fire-Resistant Plants for Eastern Washington · Official scoped edition
    • Eastern Washington (WA footprint); partial normalized coverage

      Washington DNR publishes the guide for Eastern Washington and says it compiles plants from other Firewise documents that are likely to thrive there. FireApproved publishes 46 exact owners only as eastern Washington context. The rows are corroborative, not empirical or statewide.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in CA, ID, OR, WA.
Native range
Current cited native range in CA, OR, WA.
Introduced / established
No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
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
Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status
Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here
No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context
Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context
Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
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.

Bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum)
Photo: (c) Rand Workman, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (CC BY-SA), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.
Form
tree
USDA hardiness
Applicable source statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each source
Mature height
~60 ft
Water need
moderate
Current cited native range
CA, OR, WA
Grows in
CA, ID, OR, WA
Rated in
British Columbia; OR/WA/ID; Oregon; Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho) +2
Family
Sapindaceae
Evidence
6 cited sources

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

3

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

3 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • California (CA)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Washington (WA)

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.

Conditions in the fire evidence

These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.

Fire ecology context

The Forest Service's Fire Effects Information System synthesizes how this exact taxon responds to wildland fire and occurs in fire-shaped ecosystems. This literature context does not rate a maintained landscape plant, does not change the computed classification above, and is not a substitute for building-adjacent placement guidance.

USDA Forest Service FEIS · review ACEMAC

Acer macrophyllum, bigleaf maple

  • Immediate fire effect. Thin bark leaves most size classes vulnerable to top-kill, although some large mature trees can survive moderate-severity fire. (Immediate Fire Effects)
  • Postfire response. Root-crown buds support sprouting after top-kill, and FEIS reports postfire establishment in Washington, Oregon, and northern California. (Plant Response to Fire)
  • Fuels and condition. On the moist to mesic sites it favors, bigleaf maple can contribute substantial large-leaf litter to site fuel loads. (Fuels)

Source taxon: Acer macrophyllum · exact scientific name · review written 2011-12 · page updated 2026-02-25 · source record

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.

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.

Recommends (6)

Same genus in the directory · the Acer group page

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

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

Acer macrophyllum (Bigleaf maple). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/acer-macrophyllum/. Last verified 2026-08-23.