diff --git a/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/Makefile.am b/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/Makefile.am
index 27d07bc64f..79cda83265 100644
--- a/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/Makefile.am
+++ b/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/Makefile.am
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@
 # Copyright (c) 2011-2015 INRIA.  All rights reserved.
 # Copyright (c) 2011-2015 Université Bordeaux 1
 # Copyright (c) 2017      IBM Corporation.  All rights reserved.
+# Copyright (c) 2019      Research Organization for Information Science
+#                         and Technology (RIST).  All rights reserved.
 # $COPYRIGHT$
 #
 # Additional copyrights may follow
@@ -67,3 +69,5 @@ noinst_LTLIBRARIES = $(lib)
 libmca_topo_treematch_la_SOURCES = $(lib_sources)
 libmca_topo_treematch_la_LDFLAGS = -module -avoid-version
 
+distclean-local:
+	rm -f config.h
diff --git a/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/configure.m4 b/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/configure.m4
index c937df3611..81a5ad56e4 100644
--- a/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/configure.m4
+++ b/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/configure.m4
@@ -6,7 +6,9 @@
 # Copyright (c) 2011-2015 INRIA.  All rights reserved.
 # Copyright (c) 2011-2015 Universite Bordeaux 1
 # Copyright (c) 2015      Cisco Systems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
-# Copyright (c) 2015       Intel, Inc. All rights reserved.
+# Copyright (c) 2015      Intel, Inc. All rights reserved.
+# Copyright (c) 2019      Research Organization for Information Science
+#                         and Technology (RIST).  All rights reserved.
 # $COPYRIGHT$
 #
 # Additional copyrights may follow
@@ -77,7 +79,21 @@ AC_DEFUN([MCA_ompi_topo_treematch_CONFIG], [
                         [ompi_topo_treematch_happy=1])])])
 
     AS_IF([test $ompi_topo_treematch_happy -eq 1],
-          [$1],
+          [AS_IF([test "x$treematch_files_local" = "xyes"],
+                 [AS_IF([! test -d $OMPI_TOP_BUILDDIR/ompi/mca/topo/treematch],
+                        [mkdir -p $OMPI_TOP_BUILDDIR/ompi/mca/topo/treematch])
+                  cat > $OMPI_TOP_BUILDDIR/ompi/mca/topo/treematch/config.h << EOF
+/*
+ * This file is automatically generated by configure.  Edits will be lost
+ *
+ * This is an dummy config.h in order to prevent the embedded treematch from using
+ * the config.h from the embedded hwloc
+ *
+ * see https://github.com/open-mpi/ompi/pull/6185#issuecomment-458807930
+ */
+EOF
+                 ])
+           $1],
           [AS_IF([test ! -z "$with_treematch" && test "$with_treematch" != "no"],
                  [AC_MSG_ERROR([TreeMatch support requested but not found.  Aborting])])
            $2])