The fires were so intense that wheel alloys on cars were melted to puddles of liquid metal.

“The fire was so hot, you can see the alloy wheels were completely melted,” Mark said of a neighbor’s car.

Since then, it has been adorned with bronze alloys, ceiling lights and a midnight purple colour-wrap.

For their proof-of-concept work, the researchers used Field's metal, which is an alloy of indium, bismuth and tin.

These alloys rely on the formation of protective oxide layers, such as α-Al2O3, which offers stability and durability under high temperatures.