We head inside, where his aging and hefty Lab, Ryder, wanders in, mounts the couch and issues a dreamer’s grumbles from a slightly immodest pose as Petty details the two-year making-of saga for the album. Wearing denim from head to toe, Petty, 63, emerges from one of the tree-shaded walkways that crisscross the sprawling but unpretentious compound. Though the house was spared, the emotions of that night seared a memory that comes to life in a track on his vibrant new album, “Hypnotic Eye.” It’s a hard-rocking pack of 11 songs laced with feisty social critiques, but it also has intensely personal moments like “All You Can Carry,” which recollects the fear and the lessons of that traumatic night with baleful guitars and Petty’s impassioned vocals. “I grabbed that and I went, ‘Hell, is this going to happen to me twice in my life where everything I own is just wiped out?’ And then I thought, ‘Well, I’m OK with that.’ Because things come back, but people don’t.” “It was a Hohner bass that I’ve used on every record, and you can’t find another one,” says Petty. After rousing his wife, Dana York, and a friend in a nearby building, he had time to grab only one item as they fled the so-called Canyon Fire. Two decades later, after he had relocated to Malibu, Petty woke one night to the odor of smoke. THIS COVER STORY FIRST APPEARED IN BILLBOARD MAGAZINE GET THIS WEEK’S ISSUE HERE OR SUBSCRIBE TO BILLBOARD HERE

Tom petty album covers