Tom Petty Home Fire — Encino, Los Angeles

On 15 June 1987, an arsonist set fire to Tom Petty's home in Encino in the San Fernando Valley — an attack that destroyed much of the house and could easily have killed Petty's wife and daughter, who were inside at the time and escaped unharmed. Petty himself was not home when the fire was set. The attack came at a period of intense pressure in Petty's life: he was in a prolonged legal and commercial battle with MCA Records over the pricing of his album 'Let Me Up (I Had Enough)' and had recently been forced into a difficult contract renegotiation. No perpetrator was ever publicly identified and the case was never definitively solved.

Petty's relationship with the music industry was characterised by a stubborn resistance to being pushed around that occasionally made him powerful enemies. He had famously refused to allow MCA to release his album at the then-new price point of $9.98 — above the standard $8.98 — and had threatened to declare bankruptcy rather than comply, a standoff he ultimately won. Whether the arson was connected to these industry conflicts or was the work of an unrelated individual was never established. What is documented is the psychological impact: Petty has spoken about the period following the fire as one of the darkest of his life, eventually leading to a serious struggle with heroin addiction.

The Encino property where the fire occurred is a private residence in a suburban neighbourhood of the San Fernando Valley. There is no public marker. The episode is a dark chapter in Petty's biography that sits uneasily with the sun-drenched, optimistic sound of his music — a reminder that the road-weary resilience in songs like 'I Won't Back Down' (written partly in response to this period) came from experience rather than temperament alone.