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Evergreen clematis has conflicting fire guidance, so it cannot be called reliably fire resistant.
The Generalitat Valenciana included Clematis vitalba among recommended low-flammability climbers for wildland-urban-interface gardens in 2019. That guidance uses a curated table of recommended plants, alongside a warning that names certain flammable species. On its terms, evergreen clematis is a favorable choice.
The Girona provincial government and Catalonia’s fire service reached the opposite conclusion in their 2020 Spanish guide, rating the vine “desaconsejada,” or not recommended. Their five-level garden-suitability method is broader than a simple flammability test. It weighs fire-resistance research and fire-service experience together with fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and species-specific care. Evergreen clematis is also flagged as invasive in one jurisdiction, though the findings do not establish that this alone caused the unfavorable rating.
The conflict therefore comes from two expert-curated garden guides making different practical judgments, with the Catalan method expressly considering more than ignition or burning behavior. A homeowner should not treat the Valencian recommendation as proof of fire resistance, nor the Catalan warning as a laboratory measurement of flammability. The fairest conclusion is that evergreen clematis remains a disputed choice for fire-prone landscaping.
Catalonia, Spain; Valencia, Spain / western Mediterranean
Maintenance
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in CA, MD, ME, OR, WA.
Native range
Introduced / established
4 sourced range or established records. 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: not suitable inside the 25-metre maximum-risk zone [girona-2020-iuf-25m-suitability] (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.
Clematis vitalba is rated “DESACONSEJADA” 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.
