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When Nate Smith emerged with his debut single, “Whiskey on You,” in 2022, a key piece of his backstory was the November 2018 Camp Fire, which destroyed the city of Paradise, Calif.

Smith, who was on the path to becoming a nurse, lost everything in the tragedy. But he wrote a song about the experience, “One of These Days,” and when it went viral, he ended up returning to Nashville, where he had previously recorded for Word, and gave music a second shot. Another song, “Wildfire,” led to his recording contract with Sony Music Nashville in 2021. Now his second radio single — “World on Fire,” which RCA Nashville released to country broadcasters via PlayMPE on May 15 – draws on Smith’s history once again.

“I have a fire theme in my songs,” he says. “It’s something that just stayed with me.”

“World on Fire” uses flames as a metaphor for a relationship that has been burned to the ground. But as personal as the symbolism might be for Smith, the title for the song came from co-writer Taylor Phillips (“Heaven by Then,” “Hurricane”).

“He’s got a million of ’em,” says co-writer Ashley Gorley (“Last Night,” “Girl in Mine”). “He’s the idea guy.”

Phillips works as a volunteer firefighter in North Carolina in a sideline gig, and after he helped put out blaze at a construction site, he took a phone call where he ended up recounting the tragedy. In the process, he focused on what it meant for the victim.

“I said, ‘You know, that person’s whole world is on fire,’ and I just wrote that down on my phone and really never looked back at it,” he recalls. “I was scrolling through one day and started thinking about a relationship, breaking up with somebody in a town like that. You know, you’re not just leaving that person. You’re taking the whole town with you, leaving memories everywhere.”

In November 2022, Gorley hosted a two-day writing retreat to come up with songs for Smith that included his producer, songwriter Lindsay Rimes (“Lonely If You Are,” “Cool Again”). On the first day, Smith shared a bit about the Camp Fire, and Gorley mentioned that it might be worthwhile to incorporate that into a song. When Phillips participated the second day, Rimes mentioned the previous day’s exchange, and the two of them did some very cursory work with Phillips’ “World on Fire” title song, building on late-’90s/early-2000s rock influences.

Once Smith and Gorley were in the room, they dug in fully on the chorus, bracketed by the title at the front and the back, with soaring flames referenced in the middle. Smith played a major role in shaping the top line’s intense direction.

“I’m big on the melodies,” he says. “Obviously, Ashley Gorley is the king of that, but really making it my own is important, and I can tell certain melodies don’t work. Like if it’s too happy — I know it sounds kind of emo — but if it’s too giddy, it’s not a Nate melody.”

Halfway through the chorus, Gorley suggested a repetitive rhyme — “burn, burn, burn” linked to a world that won’t “turn, turn, turn” — cinching its singalong qualities. When they shifted to the verses, Smith shared some of the details from the Camp Fire: how his brother could barely see through the smoke as he tried to evacuate, how they didn’t even recognize old haunts because the landmarks had all been destroyed. The song infused the terror of the fire, but it also reminded Smith that disasters can be a prelude to something better.

“Anytime I’m thinking about the Camp Fire and stuff, it’s definitely an emotional thing,” he notes. “There’s a lot of gratitude, too, when I think about it because in a weird way, as tough as the situation was — and it was harder on some people than me — it’s still changed the trajectory of my life.”

Phillips was impressed by Smith’s willingness to tackle such a horrific topic. “I think that what’s so cool about his artistry is that because he is that vulnerable, he is willing to open up,” says Phillips. “He’s able to tell the world a lot of things that some people probably wouldn’t want to.” 

Rimes created a guitar-based demo, slipping in a part just before the bridge that borrows from the sound of a siren. Then he shipped it off to Sol Philcox-Littlefield, who layered more guitars on top. But when Smith was gearing up to do final vocals, he asked for even more.

“Nate was like, ‘I want it to rock more,’ so I picked up my Les Paul and turned up the amp, and we just started playing some heavy guitars,” says Rimes. “Then the intro lick — that kind of guitar line at the top was never there on the demo. I think there was some other guitar there. And Nate kind of had the idea of like, ‘We need some kind of thing that sounds sort of like Foo Fighters.’ ”

Since Smith’s self-titled debut had already been turned in, Rimes planned to take his time finishing “World on Fire.” But Smith, with the label’s support, put the chorus up on TikTok on Jan. 14, and it created instant, overwhelming demand. That also presented a bit of a problem: His self-titled debut album was already being pre-sold; if they changed anything about the 20-song collection, it would nullify all those sales. So they left that album intact for its April 28 release, but also fast-tracked a deluxe edition with six additional songs, released the same day.

“It was very stressful,” Rimes recalls. “Our mastering deadline [was] the week after, so it was like two weeks until we needed everything done. I had to get all the [new] songs recorded and ready for mixing within a week.”

On May 11, four days before Smith’s single release, Dolly Parton debuted her own “World on Fire” during the Academy of Country Music Awards, though her take on the title had a political lean, and her global-themed skirt suggested climate sensitivity. “They thankfully are completely different, so I think they can coexist,” says Gorley. “When they said the title, I was like ‘Oh, shoot.’ And then when she started singing, I was like, ‘Ah, that’s a completely different vibe. We’re OK.’ ”

Smith’s “World on Fire” debuted on the Country Airplay chart dated June 24 and sits at No. 54 in its second week. So while the song borrows from the in-the-moment emotions of his personal tragedy, it’s also representative of the big-picture effect that the Camp Fire had on his life.

“If the fire never happened, I wouldn’t be an artist. I wouldn’t have written these songs,” he says. “It’s kind of crazy how life works.”