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Boston ivy is rated fire resistant overall, but regional extension services disagree sharply about its flammability.
Virginia Tech gives the vine low flammability on its three-point scale, and Michigan State includes it among plants considered wildfire-resistant for Michigan. In contrast, the USDA Forest Service and state Firewise programs place this commonly used wall covering at “Not Firewise,” the least favorable point on their four-level scale. Ohio State rates it high on a five-band flammability scale, one step below the highest band.
The disagreement comes from expert-curated sources using different scales in different regions. Virginia’s low rating and Ohio’s high rating are direct opposites, while Michigan uses a binary recommended list rather than a graduated score. Those approaches do not produce a single regional consensus.
A University of Cape Town study adds measured leaf behavior but does not resolve the landscaping dispute. Across 50 leaf trials, fresh leaves ignited in an average of 5.391 seconds and burned sustainably for 35.148 seconds; dry leaves ignited in 0.894 seconds and remained sustainable for 18.785 seconds. Boston ivy was also observed burned in the 2021 Cape Town fire. These results describe tested leaves and a fire observation, not the behavior of every mature vine beside a building. Given the limited primary evidence and conflicting extension judgments, the fire-resistant classification should be treated cautiously, especially because Boston ivy is commonly grown on walls.
Form
vine
Mature height
~30 ft
Light
Part sun
Water need
high
Rated in
Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa; Michigan / Great Lakes; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic +1
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.
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.
Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in CT, DC, DE, IA, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MN, MO, NC, NJ, NY, OH, PA, SC, TN, WV.
Native range
Introduced / established
18 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
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
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.
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.
Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.
Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 87458, Temperature, Minimum (°F).
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.
Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 2 — 5–10 ft from the structure; maintained lawn or fuel breaks, with easily ignited evergreens avoided [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (with its avoid rating)
Time to extinguish the exotic flame: Lessons from the 202…: Urban zone; Table 1 and deposited raw workbook [macalister-2025-leaf-flammability] (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.
