Footage has emerged showing the extent of damage caused during a gorse fire in Co Wicklow last month.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service and Coillte have released the drone footage.
It shows how more than four square kilometres of gorse was devastated by flames. Authorities have told RTÉ News that the fire was started deliberately.
The footage shows how a large forested area almost caught fire. It has been released as drones are being deployed in the area to try and target the source of such illegal fires.
The drones are capable of capturing continuous footage of so called "high risk" areas.
They can also detect wind direction and weather conditions to allow services determine how fast or to where fires could spread.
Large areas of land have been destroyed by last month's fire.
Damien Clarke of the National Parks and Wildlife Service said the ecology can be wiped out, "if the fire gets in to the peat and destroys that, then it is gone for ever, peat takes millennia to form".
A forest fire warning, issued by the Department of Agriculture, remains in place as the long spell of dry weather means conditions are ideal for the spread of fire.
