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Latin American fleabane is rated fire resistant on limited primary evidence.
Catalonia’s provincial government and fire service rate Erigeron karvinskianus “recommended,” one step below the highest verdict on their five-band scale. Their method assumes species-specific care and weighs fire-resistance research alongside fuel structure, maintenance, origin, invasiveness, and firefighters’ experience. The rating therefore reflects overall suitability for a fire-adapted garden, not a single laboratory measurement.
The Diablo Firesafe Council’s California guide cites six references for Latin American fleabane. It places the plant in its favorable table, which requires favorable fire performance ratings in three or more references. That agreement is useful, but the guide also says that most ranking terms in its underlying references were undefined. Its finding is best read as repeated favorable judgment, not a precise promise about how the plant will behave in every setting.
Latin American fleabane is a perennial in the aster family, introduced in California and Hawaii and flagged as invasive in two jurisdictions. Fire resistance does not erase those concerns. It may be a defensible choice on fire-performance grounds, but local invasive-plant rules and the maintenance assumed by the Catalan rating still matter.
Form
perennial
Rated in
California; Catalonia, Spain
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
The guide presents itself as fire performance ratings for common landscape plants in a fire-prone California setting. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as republished California context. It is not an independent rating, a current endorsement, or parcel suitability.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in CA, HI, WA.
Native range
Introduced / established
2 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
2 ecological invasive reports.
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)
Fire Performance of Common Plants: Table 1 (favorable in 3 or more references) [diablo-guide-to-plants-three-reference-vote] (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.
Erigeron karvinskianus is rated “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.
Corroboration (1 rows from 1 source)
Fire Performance of Common Plants (Guide to Plants) — Diablo Firesafe Council · live page captured 2026-08-29 · original sourceCorroborationMirrorlineage: ucfpl-berkeley resolves to Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants
“Table 1: favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references (refs 9,12,17,25,40,41)”
The Diablo Firesafe Council Guide to Plants lists Erigeron karvinskianus (Santa Barbara daisy, Fleabane) as groundcover, perennial, in Table 1: plants with a favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references. The guide cites 6 of its 57 numbered references for this row (9,12,17,25,40,41). The guide states the ranking terms in its underlying references were mostly undefined and makes no attempt to rank within the list, and that fire performance is compromised without maintenance.