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When the worst bushfires in Australia’s history spread through New South Wales last year, more than a billion animals were reportedly killed, with koalas hit particularly hard. Two recent studies put the death toll somewhere between 6382 and 10,000 – either way, a significant percentage of the marsupials’ overall population – while others were treated for severe burns and dehydration. Now some of the patients are being released back into the wild, and in a positive twist, they’re doing it sooner than expected, Lonely Planet reports.

On the country’s east coast, Port Macquarie Koala Hospital took in 79 koalas while the blazes raged, and by late April, 26 had been returned to their habitats at Lake Innes Nature Reserve and Crowdy Bay National Park.

“Our aim is to release all koalas to the area they came from, many from the same tree they were rescued from,” hospital president Sue Ashton tells Lonely Planet, adding that nine koalas were also returned to a wildlife care group that rescued them after the hospital provided a few months of additional treatment.

When the animals arrived at Port Macquarie, most were suffering from severe burns and dehydration and spent a day in intensive care, where they were given fluids, anaesthetised, and assessed for treatment.

“Many had burnt arms and legs, some had burned noses and ears,” Ashton says. Hospital staff cleaned their wounds, cut off dead skin, and applied a burn cream called Flamozine, then gauze and dressings, which were replaced every few days until the wounds had healed enough to go without. “Once they no longer needed dressings, we moved the koalas from intensive care – inside enclosures – into enclosures outside in the sunshine and fresh air,” Ashton says.