There are currently fewer bushfires burning across NSW but the Emergency Services Minister warns the public must not be misled.

84 bushfires are engulfing the state, down from 100 in previous days, but this is because some of the fires are merging together.

NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay has been criticised after she called on the Defence forces to be brought in to help the bushfire crisis.

But Emergency Services Minister David Elliot tells Deborah Knight the Defence Force has been on the ground since November 8.

“The fact of the matter is, I can’t send them out to shoot burning trees, we need to have firefighters doing that job.

“There’s a few less fires than we’ve had over the course of the last couple of days but people need to realise that’s not because we’re putting them out, but because a lot of these individual fires are actually merging together.

“So, they’re going from say, three smaller fires, to one much larger fire which creates a fair bit of anxiety amongst communities.”

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Image: RFS