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California sagebrush

Artemisia californica · Asteraceae · all Artemisia 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: Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Ashland, Oregon; California; Global; Marin County, California
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Prohibited Flammable Plants (Ashland Municipal Code 9.04) · Official scoped edition
- City of Ashland (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-26
  This is a City of Ashland adoption fact, not statewide Oregon guidance or an experimental flammability result. FireApproved publishes 24 taxonomy-safe owners as city-level regulatory context. It applies to new planting and propagation within 30 feet of structures, including structures on adjacent lots; it is not projected as a blanket removal order for every established listed plant.
Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County · Official scoped edition
- Marin County (CA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2019-01-01
  The publication is explicitly limited to plants common to Marin County. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as Marin regional context while retaining its placement, spacing, irrigation, and maintenance boundary. It is not statewide California guidance or parcel suitability.
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants · Official scoped edition
- CA; partial normalized coverage · 1997-07-01
  The UC Forest Products Laboratory says the guide covers properties of common California landscaping plants and was prepared for California fire agencies. FireApproved publishes 130 exact owners at historical California publication scope. The report is a 1997 compilation, not a current endorsement, site rating, or independent test of every row.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in CA, OR.
Native range: Current cited native range in CA.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: No hardiness value is normalized.

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.

California sagebrush (Artemisia californica) — Photo: (c) James C. Davis, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (CC BY-SA), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: shrub
Current cited native range: CA
Grows in: CA, OR
Rated in: Ashland, Oregon; California; Global; Marin County, California
Family: Asteraceae
Evidence: 15 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

1

exact source area

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

1 native source area · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

California (CA)

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.

Prohibited Flammable Plants: new planting or propagation restricted within 30 ft of any structure [Ashland Municipal Code setback] (with its avoid rating)
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (mid-scale 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.

Avoids (2)

Prohibited Flammable Plants (Ashland Municipal Code 9.04) — City of Ashland, Oregon (Fire & Rescue / Weed Abatement) · 2025 · original source Primary evidence Regulation lineage: pnw590-tree

“prohibited flammable plant” · original source

The City of Ashland restricts new planting or propagation within 30 ft of any structure, including structures on adjacent lots (AMC 9.04).
Fire-Resistant Plants Common to Marin County — Fire Safe Marin · 2019 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: partially-independent

“listed as fire-prone”

Fire Safe Marin lists this taxon among common fire-prone plants in Marin County.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants — University of California Forest Products Laboratory · Internal Report 36.01.137 (July 1997) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: ucfpl-berkeley

“Conflicting information on fire performance.”

1997 Landscape Vegetation Database row: Artemisia californica (California sagebrush, coastal sagebrush). Preserved UCFPL transcription marker: C8.

Listed without a rating (12)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

12 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “energy flux (kW/m²): 39” · score 39 (FLAMITS — energy flux (kW/m²))
  
  FLAMITS record 13934; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “maximum energy flux (kW/m²): 68” · score 68 (FLAMITS — maximum energy flux (kW/m²))
  
  FLAMITS record 13941; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 1241.99” · score 1241.99 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13942; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “time to maximum heat release rate (s): 211” · score 211 (FLAMITS — time to maximum heat release rate (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 13948; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “energy flux (kW/m²): 45” · score 45 (FLAMITS — energy flux (kW/m²))
  
  FLAMITS record 13951; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “maximum energy flux (kW/m²): 34” · score 34 (FLAMITS — maximum energy flux (kW/m²))
  
  FLAMITS record 13958; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “time to maximum heat release rate (s): 301” · score 301 (FLAMITS — time to maximum heat release rate (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 13959; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 1528.61” · score 1528.61 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13960; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “energy flux (kW/m²): 32” · score 32 (FLAMITS — energy flux (kW/m²))
  
  FLAMITS record 13964; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “maximum energy flux (kW/m²): 57” · score 57 (FLAMITS — maximum energy flux (kW/m²))
  
  FLAMITS record 13968; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 1600.26” · score 1600.26 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13974; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.
- “time to maximum heat release rate (s): 77” · score 77 (FLAMITS — time to maximum heat release rate (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 13980; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device calorimeter; site White1996-1; sampling ND. Primary study White1996: White, R. H., Weise, D. R., & Frommer, S. (1996). Preliminary evaluation of the flammability of native and ornamental plants with the cone calorimeter. 21st International Conference on Fire Safety. Coimbra, Portugal.

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Kinnikinnick
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi

Red-osier dogwood
Cornus sericea

Snowberry
Symphoricarpos albus

Creeping holly
Berberis repens

Shrubby cinquefoil
Dasiphora fruticosa

Rocky Mountain maple
Acer glabrum

Fire-resistant shrubs listed above

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

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

Artemisia californica (California sagebrush). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/artemisia-californica/. Last verified 2026-08-23.