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.
Travis County, Austin area (TX footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2024-01-16
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension publishes this page through its Travis County horticulture program. FireApproved publishes 56 exact owners and retains the source's zone and warning conditions. This is county/Austin regional context, not a second statewide Texas table or site clearance.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
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.
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)
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin: シュロ — Table 10-2 [tadaki-kira-1982-fire-protection-power] (with its avoid rating)
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (with its avoid rating)
Firewise Landscaping: Small trees/Large Shrubs [Travis County Firewise page sections] (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.
Trachycarpus fortunei 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.
Avoids (3)
Tree fire-protection classification in Hito to Shinrin (人と森林) — Kyoritsu Shuppan; table reproduced by Kagoshima Prefecture · Hito to Shinrin (1982), Table 10-2; Kagoshima web reproduction · original sourcePrimary evidenceExpert-curatedlineage: independent (root of Japanese municipal fire-protection tree lists)
Table 10-2 prints シュロ in the unsuitable fire-protection-power class. The Kagoshima reproduction says highly fire-protective trees can slow spread, promote upward dispersal of heat and smoke, and intercept flying embers.
“Plants to Avoid for Zone 1 (within 30′ of Structure)”
Listed as Palm, Windmill — Trachycarpus fortunei. The page says Zone 1 entries should be restricted to zones 2 or 3; all-zone entries are highly flammable due to volatile oils or growth habit.
Trachycarpus fortunei (Palmera china de abanico, Palmera excelsa). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/trachycarpus-fortunei/. Last verified 2026-08-25.
