IREX Launches Smarter, Faster Fire and Smoke AI Detection to Protect Communities and Critical Infrastructure

[Washington, DC – April 2, 2026] – IREX, a global pioneer in ethical AI and intelligent video analytics deployed across 10+ countries and over 300,000 cameras, announced a major update to its FireTrack smoke and fire detection module. The update doesn’t require any additional hardware and broadens FireTrack’s applicability to critical infrastructure such as energy facilities and transportation hubs, public institutions including schools and hospitals, residential and commercial buildings, and parks, national parks, and forests.

Built on IREX’s ethical AI platform, the new module processes visual data in just 75–105 milliseconds – or about 0.1 second -, identifying danger almost instantly. This advancement – combined with improved model accuracy and resilience in poor lighting or weather – empowers early intervention by first responders, reducing the risk of catastrophic loss.

The updated model analyzes how fire and smoke evolve over time, distinguishing genuine hazards from harmless visuals like fog, headlights, or glare. This dramatically cuts down false alarms, allowing safety teams to focus on incidents that truly require attention.

To boost accuracy, IREX changed how the system “sees” fire and smoke. Instead of traditional bounding boxes around objects, the updated module uses segmentation, applying a color mask over the exact areas where fire or smoke appears: green for fire and red for smoke, thus better reflecting their irregular shapes. This approach improves the system’s ability to localize hazards precisely within the scene.

Credit: Irex

The updated FireTrack delivers early warning that is significantly faster than traditional optical or heat-based detectors by analyzing live video feeds for the visual signatures of smoke and fire in real time.

“Because the IREX AI platform seamlessly operates on existing camera networks, cities and organizations can strengthen fire safety without installing specialized sensor hardware – simply by connecting their CCTV systems to IREX,” said Serge Smirnoff, Head of PR at IREX. “Each detection event comes with a video snapshot for instant visual verification, enabling operators and first responders to quickly assess the situation and respond effectively.”

By leveraging the surveillance infrastructure already in place, the new FireTrack model offers a cost-effective path to comprehensive fire safety across both built environments and natural landscapes.

“The pride I feel for the IREX team today is immense. This FireTrack launch is a monumental achievement that reflects our core mission, to deploy ethical, intelligent AI to solve the world’s most critical problems,” said Calvin Yadav, CEO of IREX. “We are strengthening the resilience of entire communities globally, proving that every hour of hard work put into responsibly designed artificial intelligence is actively saving lives long before a single alarm sounds.”