wayne freeman was in sunol county. >> reporter: if you prayed for rain in a fire zone, they were answered today. in the skyhawk neighborhood of santa rosa a difference six weeks can make and david is living proof. >> you can't just wipe it away. >> reporter: we last saw him on september 29th when he and his wife hiked eight miles into the glass fire evacuation zone to see if their house had survived the odds after the fury of those flames. >> we took two separate cars and we were not together. and i thought, okay, i'm going to have to say good-bye to my husband via text message. >> reporter: most of the 32 homes had been in skyhawk, just a fraction of the losses in california's worst fire season ever. 8,100 incident, 4.5 million acres burned with more than 400,000 of them in the north counties. does the rain mean it's finally over? >> technically we have to see how much rain we're going to get. >> reporter: even if this does mean the end of the fire season it doesn't mean the end of concerns. too much rain, another set of problems. from run-off and from mud slides. so now this. the stuff