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Fresh avocado material was judged weakly flammable in a laboratory study, despite high combustion intensity once it burned.
Lucas and colleagues reported this combination in a Brazilian conference abstract. They burned recently collected, fine mature plant material using an epiradiator. Their weak-flammability classification depended on ignition frequency and the time taken to ignite. Combustion intensity described another aspect of the burning material. A favorable classification based on ignition therefore coexisted with the authors' high-intensity finding.
The original study concerns sampled plant material, rather than a whole avocado tree exposed to a wildfire. A separate fraction of the material was oven-dried to estimate moisture content; that measurement procedure does not establish that the samples burned in the experiment were pre-dried. The authors suggested potential use in green firebreaks, but their laboratory experiment did not demonstrate protection by an orchard or a planted firebreak in the field.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand gives avocado, Persea americana, a moderate flammability rating in its plant directory. That assessment belongs alongside the Brazilian result, rather than being replaced by its weakly-flammable label. The useful distinction is between ignition behavior, combustion intensity and a directory's overall grade. For avocado, the favorable laboratory classification answers only part of the fire-behavior question.
Form
tree
Rated in
Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil; Global; New Zealand
Uses
fruit
On this lot
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
Placement evidence
Evidence regions
Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil; Global; New Zealand
Maintenance
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in FL, HI, PR, VI.
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
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.
Conditions in the fire evidence
These describe tested or rated plant material. They are not horticultural maintenance instructions.
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.
“Weakly flammable despite high combustion intensity”
· condition: green
In 50 fresh-shoot epiradiator trials, ignition frequency was 28/50, mean ignition time 35.4 s, and moisture 150.91%; mean flame length exceeded 12 cm.
Source wording: “fracamente inflamável”
Mid-scale / conditional (1)
Low Flammability Plants directory — Fire and Emergency New Zealand (plant flammability testing at Lincoln University) · 2026 · original sourcePrimary evidenceLab-testedlineage: lincoln-nz-tree
“Moderate flammability”
Moderate flammability classification.
Listed without a rating (9)Corroboration (9 rows from 1 source)
9 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
Primary study Fonseca2021: Fonseca, F. M., da Silva Junior, J. G., de Cerqueira Jacobs, R., Kovalsyki, B., Batista, A. C., de Souza Ferreira, T., & Tetto, A. F. (2021). Inflamabilidade de espécies arbóreas para utilização em cortinas de segurança na interface urbano-rural. Biodiversidade, 2, 32-42.
Shared row context: plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device epiradiator; site Fonseca2021-1; sampling ND.
Primary study Pacheco2022: Pacheco, A. S., Goodman, H. D., Hankenson, L., Fisk, J. J., Ortiz, A., Marinace, H. M., ... Tng, D. Y. P. (2022). Fighting fire with food: Assessing the flammability of crop plant species for building fire resilient agroforestry systems. in review, preprint.
Shared row context: plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Pacheco2022-1; sampling october to november 2022.
