Now, the park says that the trees are not only alive, they might not be without family for much longer. 

California State Parks announced in a statement that several scientists visited The Orphans on Oct. 5 and observed that they are alive. Moreover, thousands of seedlings have sprouted around them.

The Orphans are more than 120 feet tall and are believed to be between 500 and 1,000 years old. They got their nickname because of their isolating distance from the rest of the giant sequoias in the North Grove.

Park officials wrote last summer that sequoia mortality in prescribed burns is both “extremely rare and a natural part of a natural process. Tree mortality, when it happens, creates habitat for many years for a wide range of species.”

Although California State Parks Central Valley District Superintendent Danielle Gerhart couldn’t confirm scientifically why the trees survived, she said sometimes a burn “can look worse” than it appears. 

“I think that’s probably the case here,” she told SFGATE. “There was some scorch, absolutely. But trees are pretty resilient. And maybe [it was] the wet winter we had — there could be multiple reasons why. The good news is that they made it through, and they’re getting pretty green.”

Although prescribed burns might seem dangerous, they’re necessary to reduce the risk of wildfires. Burns remove competing trees and plants while creating space in the canopy for sunlight to reach new seedlings and return nutrients to the soil. 

“Giant sequoias cannot naturally reproduce in large numbers without fire,” park officials wrote in statement. 

The damage to the sequoias caused great concern for community members. In June, Calaveras County Supervisor Martin Huberty said the trees are a significant tourist attraction for the area, and he was concerned about his constituents’ safety.

Gerhart told SFGATE that the incident made them “look really hard at what we are doing.” So far, there have been no changes announced for the park’s prescribed burn policy. 

Marcie Powers, a former board member for the nonprofit Calaveras Big Trees Association, told the LA Times that while she was happy the trees had fresh greenery, it still weakened them and killed younger giant sequoias, aged between 10 and 40 years old. 

“I still feel that had they been more vigilant, they might not have had such severe damage to the Orphans or to the dozen adolescent giant sequoias around them that were outright killed,” she told the paper.