Songfacts®:

• This revenge fantasy finds Mimi Webb imagining getting even with her cheating boyfriend by setting fire to his home. Webb pictures being far away before anyone calls the fire brigade, and if she gets questioned, she'll deny their relationship was serious. Speaking to the Daily Star, she described "House on Fire" as "super out there and a bit sassy."
• Webb wrote the uptempo breakup song with Pablo Bowman of the Manchester writing and production collective The Six (Louis Tomlinson's "Back to You," Marshmello & Anne-Marie's "Friends").
  
  Joe Housley, Ines Dunn, and Charlie Martin also helped with the writing of the track.
• Canadian producer and songwriter Cirkut helmed the tune. Cirkut's other credits include Katy Perry's "Roar," Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball," and Ava Max's "Sweet But Psycho."
• Of course, arson is a serious crime and Webb is just expressing her anger over her unfaithful boyfriend. Other songs involving arson include:
  
  "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" by The Beatles (a man sets a girl's house on fire after she won't let him into her bed).
  
  "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin (a woman burns her house down to escape her past).
  
  "Pyro" by Kings of Leon (about a guy with pyromaniac tendencies).
  
  "Burning Down The House" by Talking Heads (David Byrne shouts out a series of phrases that fit the song's rhythm, many of which are to do with fire).
• Pablo Bowman, Ines Dunn, and Charlie Martin wrote "House On Fire" at a writing camp in Manchester.
  
  "Pablo was playing the guitar and I think I started singing the chorus melody, and he was like, 'Oh, it sounds like you're saying, 'Set your house on fire,''" Dunn recalled to Songwriter magazine. "Then we were like, 'That's funny, let's just do that.' So then we started writing House On Fire."
  
  When Dunn's publisher pitched the song to Mimi Webb, she loved it. Webb added her own spin, adjusting the melody and writing an outro, transforming the song into the polished pop hit it became.