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Hemlock, mountain

Tsuga mertensiana · Pinaceae · all Tsuga records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Global; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source

Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01) · Official scoped edition
- Lake Tahoe Basin (CA, NV footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2006-01-01
  Nevada Division of Forestry and University of Nevada Cooperative Extension publish Bulletin 06-01 for the Lake Tahoe Basin and vicinity. FireApproved publishes 83 exact rated owners as basin context across Nevada and California. Rough estimates are not statewide or site ratings.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: Documented in AK, CA, ID, MT, NV, OR, WA.
Native range: Current cited native range in AK, CA, ID, MT, NV, OR, WA.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 5a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

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.

Form: tree
USDA hardiness: Minimum 5a; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~125 ft
Water need: high
Current cited native range: AK, CA, ID, MT, NV, OR, WA
Grows in: AK, CA, ID, MT, NV, OR, WA
Rated in: Global; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California
Family: Pinaceae
Evidence: 11 cited sources

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.

Current native

7

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

7 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Alaska (AK)
California (CA)
Idaho (ID)
Montana (MT)
Nevada (NV)
Oregon (OR)
Washington (WA)

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.

USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record TSME · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 5a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -18°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Tsuga mertensiana · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 15608, 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.

Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity: Fire Hazard column: high [tahoe-guide-2006] (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.

Avoids (1)

Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01) — Nevada Division of Forestry / University of Nevada Cooperative Extension · Bulletin 06-01 (2006) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unr-tree

“high — Hemlock, mountain — Tsuga mertensiana”

Table 1's Fire Hazard column prints “high” for this taxon. The guide calls the rating a rough estimate of potential flammability, not a result of scientific trials. Its footnote says plants that turn brown often become high fire hazards and tells readers to mow grasses and forbs when they begin to turn brown.

Listed without a rating (10)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

10 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 974.49” · score 974.49 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13471; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site vanWagtendonk1998-1; sampling ND. Primary study vanWagtendonk1998: Van Wagdendonk, J., Sydoriak, W. M., & Benedict, J. M. (1998). Heat content variation of Sierra Nevada conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 8, 147-158.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 527.85” · score 527.85 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13472; Combustibility measurement; plant part litter; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site vanWagtendonk1998-1; sampling ND. Primary study vanWagtendonk1998: Van Wagdendonk, J., Sydoriak, W. M., & Benedict, J. M. (1998). Heat content variation of Sierra Nevada conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 8, 147-158.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 5032.48” · score 5032.48 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13473; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site vanWagtendonk1998-1; sampling ND. Primary study vanWagtendonk1998: Van Wagdendonk, J., Sydoriak, W. M., & Benedict, J. M. (1998). Heat content variation of Sierra Nevada conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 8, 147-158.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 4910.67” · score 4910.67 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13474; Combustibility measurement; plant part litter; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site vanWagtendonk1998-1; sampling ND. Primary study vanWagtendonk1998: Van Wagdendonk, J., Sydoriak, W. M., & Benedict, J. M. (1998). Heat content variation of Sierra Nevada conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 8, 147-158.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 4941.72” · score 4941.72 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13547; Combustibility measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site vanWagtendonk1998-1; sampling ND. Primary study vanWagtendonk1998: Van Wagdendonk, J., Sydoriak, W. M., & Benedict, J. M. (1998). Heat content variation of Sierra Nevada conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 8, 147-158.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 4815.13” · score 4815.13 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13548; Combustibility measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site vanWagtendonk1998-1; sampling ND. Primary study vanWagtendonk1998: Van Wagdendonk, J., Sydoriak, W. M., & Benedict, J. M. (1998). Heat content variation of Sierra Nevada conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 8, 147-158.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 5025.32” · score 5025.32 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13549; Combustibility measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site vanWagtendonk1998-1; sampling ND. Primary study vanWagtendonk1998: Van Wagdendonk, J., Sydoriak, W. M., & Benedict, J. M. (1998). Heat content variation of Sierra Nevada conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 8, 147-158.
- “calorific value (kcal/kg): 4853.35” · score 4853.35 (FLAMITS — calorific value (kcal/kg))
  
  FLAMITS record 13550; Combustibility measurement; plant part wood; fuel live; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site vanWagtendonk1998-1; sampling ND. Primary study vanWagtendonk1998: Van Wagdendonk, J., Sydoriak, W. M., & Benedict, J. M. (1998). Heat content variation of Sierra Nevada conifers. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 8, 147-158.
- “maximum flame temperature (°C): 62.252” · score 62.252 (FLAMITS — maximum flame temperature (°C))
  
  FLAMITS record 15581; Combustibility measurement; plant part leaves; fuel all; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Zhang2022-1; sampling january and march 2011. Primary study Zhang2022: Zhang, S., Cornwell, W. K., Zhao, W., van Logtestijn, R. S., Krab, E. J., Aerts, R., & Cornelissen, J. H. (2022). Experimental evidence that leaf litter decomposability and flammability are decoupled across gymnosperm species. Journal of Ecology, 111, 761-772.
- “flaming duration (s): 2.4” · score 2.4 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 15622; Sustainability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel all; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Zhang2022-1; sampling january and march 2011. Primary study Zhang2022: Zhang, S., Cornwell, W. K., Zhao, W., van Logtestijn, R. S., Krab, E. J., Aerts, R., & Cornelissen, J. H. (2022). Experimental evidence that leaf litter decomposability and flammability are decoupled across gymnosperm species. Journal of Ecology, 111, 761-772.

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Last verified 2026-08-25. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF ·

Tsuga mertensiana (Hemlock, mountain). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/tsuga-mertensiana/. Last verified 2026-08-25.