ONE of Australia's leading fire experts has warned that Victorians may be exposing their homes to greater risk and damaging the environment unnecessarily under the State Government's new land-clearing rules.

Last month, under the so-called ''10/30 right'', the Government announced that people could clear vegetation, including trees, within 10 metres of their houses. They were also allowed to clear scrub and ground fuel within 30 metres of their home.

But bushfire behavioural expert Kevin Tolhurst told The Sunday Age that people appeared to be clearing large numbers of trees without realising that many species could help protect a house during fire.

A stand of trees could shield a house from some radiation and also slow down wind, reducing the embers that reach a house. The key thing, Dr Tolhurst said, was to make sure the trees were not stringybarks, which produced a large amount of embers during fires.