Drone pilot Pete Short hunts for hotspots in the Cairngorms National Park which was devastated by a huge wildfire over the summer

It is 06:00 and I'm meeting drone pilot Pete Short for a dawn patrol in the Cairngorms National Park.

It is a job he has been doing for almost three months, since a huge wildfire tore through this landscape in July.

The flames which swept across the hillsides are gone. From where we are standing, there is little to suggest there is still a fire here at all.

After a bumpy drive into the woodland, Pete launches a thermal drone into the early morning sky.

I am given a job too: keeping the aircraft in sight while he studies the images being sent back to his screen.

"Every week I hope that I find none," he tells me. "On the last thermal flight I did we found eight."

"We might have something here," Pete says, as a white glow appears on the thermal image beneath a tree.

Three months after the fire first ignited, heat is still being detected beneath the ground.

We make our way towards the coordinates identified by the drone, and at first, there is almost nothing to see.

The soil is warm. A rock Pete picks up from the ground is, too.

Nearby, after scraping away a thin layer of earth, smoke begins to rise.

The wildfire began in the middle of July and burned across about 3,300 hectares – 33 sq km – of land, according to the Cairngorms National Park Authority.

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