What it allows
In a 10/50 vegetation clearing entitlement area, the Rural Fires Act lets you:
- remove or prune any vegetation, including trees, within 10 m of the external wall of a qualifying building (a home, or certain other buildings like schools and childcare centres), and
- remove or prune vegetation other than trees within 50 m: shrubs, groundcovers, vines.
Distances are measured from the home’s external wall, and you can only clear on your own land (or with written consent from neighbours). Not to scale.
No fire, and no machinery that disturbs the soil. And it overrides council tree protection: “Vegetation clearing work may be carried out under this section despite any requirement for a licence, approval, consent or other authorisation.”
What counts as a tree, and how the 10 m is measured
For 10/50 purposes a tree is a woody plant 3 m or taller with a trunk circumference over 30 cm at 1.3 m above the ground. It qualifies if part of its trunk at that height is within 10 m of the wall.
The 10 m is measured from the external walls, including attached decks, verandahs, pergolas and garages. Detached garages, sheds, water tanks and paving don’t count.
The building must be lawfully approved and occupied. You can’t clear on a building site after development consent but before the house exists, and an interim occupation certificate isn’t enough.
Check the tool, on the day
Eligibility comes only from the RFS online 10/50 tool. The RFS’s advice is to check it on the day you clear and keep a copy of the result.
Check your address on the NSW RFS 10/50 tool → There’s no suburb list; the map works lot by lot.
The exclusions that catch people out
Even inside an entitlement area, the whole lot is excluded if it’s wholly or partly mapped as:
- heritage (State or local). A local heritage listing on part of your lot excludes the whole lot
- critically endangered ecological communities, such as Cumberland Plain Woodland and Shale Sandstone Transition Forest
- coastal wetlands, littoral rainforest, mangroves and saltmarsh, or land within 100 m of the coastline or estuaries
- national parks, Aboriginal places and scarred trees, or critical habitat
And the Code’s conditions still apply:
- no clearing within 10 m of a river (2 m or wider) or a lake
- on slopes over 18°, no removing trees (or pruning more than 25% of the original canopy) except under the conditions of a geotechnical engineer’s assessment report
- pruning to AS 4373
- herbicides only as the Code allows (clause 7.4)
- no removal below the soil surface and no soil disturbance, which rules out grinding the stump under the Code. Ask your council before grinding.
- topsoil stays where it is, and a protective ground cover must be kept on the soil
- no graders, ploughs, bulldozers, excavators or other machinery designed to break the soil surface
Those soil rules don’t shift the risk off you. The RFS is clear that owners who clear under the Code are still liable for erosion and landslip: if a neighbour’s land slips because of clearing on yours, they can take action against you. On a slope, get expert advice first.
What 10/50 does not override
Development consent conditions, s 88B covenants on your title, court orders and conservation agreements all still apply. And it gives you no protection under federal environment law, or from animal offences. The RFS says owners clearing under the Code are not exempt from prosecution under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 for harming protected fauna, or under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979 for cruelty to any animal, native, introduced or domestic. If a tree has a hollow with a possum or bird in it, you can’t just cut it down. If you find displaced, orphaned or injured wildlife, call a licensed wildlife rescue group such as WIRES.
In the Sutherland Shire
Much of the Shire borders the Royal and Heathcote National Parks and large bushland reserves, so some Shire addresses are in a 10/50 area. Sutherland Shire Council lists the 10/50 Code as an exemption from its tree permit, and its DCP notes that “in bushfire prone zones RFS regulations apply (10 metres)”. Bushland-edge suburbs like Heathcote, Waterfall, Bundeena and Maianbar are the likeliest candidates, but the tool decides, not the suburb.
Doing the work yourself is rarely wise. A 10/50 entitlement doesn’t make a 20 m gum any safer to fell. We can do the clearing under the Code, prune what doesn’t need to go, and leave the land in a condition that meets the rules.