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Fires in the engine compartments of surface and underground non-rail heavy duty vehicles are still highly frequent. Statistics show that most of the reported fires commenced in the engine compartment and that these were not promptly detected by the drivers. Fires which were not detected rapidly, spread oftentimes beyond the firewall of the engine compartment having notorious economical and environmental repercussions; furthermore, endangering the safety of the occupants. Detecting fires in the engine compartments of heavy duty (HD) vehicles with inexpensive and simple automatic detection systems is in general challenging. High air flows and large amounts of suspended pollutants, together with the complicated geometry and wide range of surface temperatures typically occurring during the normal operation of the vehicle, complicate the reliable operation of almost all types of detectors.