However, your understanding of that sentence also involves inference. If you think John's possessions, stored in the house, are burning too, or have a probability of burning too, then you've inferred that. We can even characterize your thoughts that John is a male human person, and that the house is to some degree made of wood, as inferences. There are good inferences and bad ones. A bad inference fails to make sense.
Arguments are inferences.
More specifically, an argument is used to lead a thinker from premises taken to be true to a conclusion which should follow as true. All roads lead to Rome. Pennsylvania Avenue is a road. It isn't true that all roads lead to Rome. Pennsylvania Avenue is a road.