In 2020 and 2021,  Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks experienced wildfires of an unprecedented size and severity, burning a substantial portion of the parks' forests. Prior to those fires, over a century of fire suppression had created fuels conditions that had made park forests vulnerable to just this sort of 'catastrophic' fire. While park management has long had the goal of reducing this vulnerability through prescribed fire or managed wildfire, achieving such restoration goals at landscape scales has proven challenging. Given their size and heterogeneous nature, these recent wildfires present a potential opportunity for management. Here, we examine to what degree the effects of such wildfires are in alignment with forest management goals.