Bushfire Hazard Reduction Work on Wollondilly Properties

The country between the slashed grass and the bush

If you own a block at Buxton, Bargo, Yanderra, Appin or the edge of Warragamba, you already know where your property's real boundary is. It is not the fence. It is the line where mown or slashed ground stops and the bush starts — the sandstone scrub above the Bargo River, the ridges behind Thirlmere Lakes National Park, the continuous forest west toward Nattai and the Burragorang. That line is where hazard reduction work happens.

The Wollondilly does not need reminding what fire here can do. The Green Wattle Creek fire burned through the summer of 2019-20 across four local government areas — Wollondilly, Wingecarribee, Upper Lachlan and Oberon — and Buxton, Bargo and Balmoral were among the communities most directly affected. Two firefighters died on Wilson Drive at Buxton during that campaign. We are not going to use that to sell you anything. We mention it because the physical legacy is still on a lot of blocks: standing dead timber, and dense even-aged regrowth that has come back thicker than what it replaced.

What this work is, and what it is not

Being clear about this up front matters more here than on any other page.

What the crews we connect you with can do: cut, thin, remove and dispose of vegetation. Clear fuel from around buildings. Take overhanging limbs off roofs, sheds and tanks. Remove standing dead trees. Thin dense regrowth. Open up access along driveways and boundaries. Chip, windrow or cart the material away.

What nobody in this trade can do for you:

• Issue an approval. Council permits and RFS entitlements are yours to hold. We do not obtain them and we do not assume them.
• Set or certify an Asset Protection Zone. APZ requirements come from Council and the NSW Rural Fire Service. A contractor cannot sign one off.
• Claim compliance with a bushfire standard. If a consent condition or a bush fire assessment applies to your property, take the physical result back to the body that imposed it.
• Guarantee a property will be safe. Nobody can. Reducing fuel around a building reduces one variable among many. It is worth doing. It is not a promise.
• Conduct a hazard reduction burn. Burning is a separate regulated activity — talk to the NSW RFS about permits and the Bush Fire Danger Period.

Any operator who tells you otherwise is telling you what you want to hear.

The practical work, in the order it usually matters

Directly against the building. Limbs overhanging or touching a roof, gutter, eave, verandah or tank. Vegetation growing hard against a wall. This is the first and simplest thing most properties can improve, and on a lot of Wollondilly houses it is a half-day job.

The immediate surrounds. Reducing fuel across the ground immediately around the house and sheds — dead material, heavy fallen limbs, dense shrubby understorey, accumulated bark and litter under trees.

Thinning the near stand. Where regrowth has come back thick, selectively thinning stems reduces continuity and gives the retained trees room. This is a judgement job, not a bulldozer job, and it should keep the better-formed trees.

Standing dead timber. Fire-killed spars and long-dead trees are both a fuel issue and a falling hazard, and they are genuinely difficult to take down safely because nothing in them can be trusted to hold. This overlaps with dead tree and deadwood removal and, for the big ones, large and dangerous tree removal.

Access. A long, narrow, overgrown gravel driveway is a problem for a fire appliance and for you. Widening the corridor and getting low limbs clear above it is one of the more useful things a landholder can do — and it is a year-round benefit, not just a summer one.

Boundaries and separation. Breaking up continuous fuel between the bush and the buildings, within whatever the law allows on your particular block.

The three legal pathways, and why you must check your own address

There is no single rule that covers bushfire clearing in NSW. Three separate pathways may or may not apply to your property.

1. Wollondilly Shire Council tree approvals. The default position for private trees. Council maintains an exemption list, treats trees that are dead or dying as exempt where they are not required as native animal habitat, and otherwise requires a Tree Management Application — Tier 1 for up to 5 trees or up to 100sqm of vegetation, Tier 2 for up to 10 trees or over 100sqm, assessed with a target of 30 business days (Wollondilly Shire Council).

2. The 10/50 Vegetation Clearing scheme. Run by the NSW RFS, this allows some clearing near a habitable building without council approval — but only inside a designated entitlement area. Whether your address is inside one is not something you can infer from your neighbours or your postcode. Use the NSW RFS 10/50 tool, check it on the day you intend to work, read the 10/50 Code of Practice, and keep the report it produces.

3. The Rural Boundary Clearing Code. Allows some rural landholders to clear vegetation within 25 metres of a property boundary to reduce fire spread, to the minimum extent necessary. It applies only to rural-zoned, bushfire-prone land, it carries exclusions, and in Greater Sydney it applies only where the council has opted in. We have not been able to confirm Wollondilly's current status either way, so check the RFS Rural Boundary Clearing Tool for your address and confirm with Council on (02) 4677 1100 before relying on it.

Rules and entitlement boundaries change. Print or save whatever the tools give you, dated, before work starts.

A walk-around worth doing yourself this weekend

You do not need a contractor to do the first assessment. Walk the property with a notepad and look for:

• Anything touching or overhanging the roof, gutters, eaves or a rainwater tank.
• Dead limbs still hanging in live crowns near the house, sheds or yards.
• Standing dead trees within falling distance of a building, a driveway or a fence line.
• Piles of dead material, old cut timber or heaped garden waste sitting close to structures.
• Continuous shrubby understorey running from the bush right up to the buildings.
• A driveway too narrow or too overgrown for a truck to get in and turn.
• Anything growing under or into the powerline run across the paddock — that one is a call to your network provider, not a DIY job.

That list is usually enough to get an accurate quote over the phone, and often enough to sort out the cheapest and most useful half of the work.

Do it in the cool months

The realistic window is autumn through early spring. Ground conditions suit machinery, the work itself is lower-risk, and you have time to deal with the material rather than leaving heaps sitting. If you are chipping on site, think about where the mulch goes — spreading heavy chip right against a house is not the point of the exercise. Mulching and green waste removal covers the options, and acreage and land clearing covers the larger-scale version of this work.

Book the walk-over early

Tell us the town, the block size, where the bush boundary sits and how close a truck can get. We will connect you with a local crew who works that part of the shire, and you will get a straight quote for the physical work — with no claims attached to it that nobody can keep.

More on the shire's towns is on the areas serviced page, and the rest of what we arrange is on the home page.

Call (02) 4601 3180 for a free, no-obligation quote on hazard reduction work in the Wollondilly.