Alasdair Reisner, director of external affairs at the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, said its members had been in favour of lane rental schemes for years.

BBC: Lane rental scheme for digging up roads proposed

Jon Reisner and Rod Linn at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have also devised a coupled fire-forecasting model, which runs on a supercomputer called Nirvana Blue.

ECONOMIST: Next, the fire forecast

This model is unique, says Dr Reisner, in its ability to predict from first principles the rate at which a fire spreads, rather than relying on empirical rules of thumb devised from observation.

ECONOMIST: Next, the fire forecast

As they blaze a trail towards more accurate forecasts, Dr Reisner and his colleagues will spend the next few months simulating, in extraordinary detail, the fire that almost destroyed their laboratory in May.

ECONOMIST: Next, the fire forecast