Drone footage shows devastation after wildfires ravage Turkey's pine forests

FILE PHOTO: Vegetation fires burn behind the hotel in Icmeler, near Marmaris, Turkey July 31, 2021 in this still image obtained from a social media video. Hakan Gurcan/via REUTERS

ICMELER, Turkey (Reuters) - Until devastated by wildfires, hills near the Turkish sea resort of Marmaris were decked in thick green pine forest. Now these same hills form a ghostly, grey-brown landscape topped with blackened tree stumps as though sketched in charcoal.

Drone footage from the small tourist seaside town of Icmeler near Marmaris from before and after what President Tayyip Erdogan has called Turkey's worst wildfires shows the extent of the devastation.