When First Responders Need Better Eyes: Strengthening CBRN-E Preparedness Through Early Detection

Finland (with the Finnish Ministry of the Interior and Tampere city) is part of a Horizon project working on advanced sensor technology and smart city integration. This work is directed by security interests and the long term goal is provision of solutions that help to strengthen European preparedness for, for example, chemical and biological hazards. This blog explains the rationale behind the project. It seeks to lay out the benefit for it for first response services and urban citizens.

The challenge of identifying CBRN(E)-incidents

Firefighters, police, and first aid personnel are often the first to respond to emergencies. In such situations, time is often a critical factor. However, situational awareness may be even more important. Alarm centers dispatch first responders to the scene after initially assessing the type of assistance and equipment needed. Police may not be best equipped to stop fires, just as firefighters are not best equipped to stop crimes. 

There are certain rare situations in which achieving accurate situational awareness is particularly difficult. CBRN-E incidents—chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive accidents or intentional attacks—can fall into this category. Identifying a CBRN-E incident is challenging because humans often lack the ability to detect radiation or many biological and chemical substances and their source without specialized equipment. (Letter E, standing for explosives, is in brackets, because here the detection is less difficult).

Moreover, while CBRN-E incidents are rare, they can also be highly destructive. Historically, plague (Yersinia pestis) has been one of the most notorious biological agents, with up to half of Europe’s population succumbing to the Black Death during the 14th century. Today, plague is very rare, especially in developed countries. Nonetheless, it remains classified as a high-priority biological agent by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This list includes agents that are easily transmitted from person to person, cause high mortality, and therefore pose serious risks to human life and national security.

Having an accurate situational picture as early as possible is always important, but perhaps especially so in CBRN-E incidents. Yet not all first-response units are equally well equipped to handle them. Because such incidents are rare, CBRN-E capabilities may vary even among fire and rescue units. Thus, in the worst-case scenario, the first-response unit dispatched may lack the competence or equipment needed to address the threat. This could happen, for example, if only first aid personnel are sent to a scene that also requires specialized CBRN-E units.

Enhancing early detection capabilities

Preparing for these rare but high-risk incidents is part of the EU’s Preparedness Union Strategy. Monitoring CBRN-E threats and developing early warning tools are just two of the many measures involved in CBRN preparedness. On a practical level, this could include installing the same type of detection equipment used by first responders and CBRN-E units in public spaces and integrating it into smart city infrastructure or directly into first-response operational systems.

The EU’s Horizon funding programme is a key financial instrument for developing and testing solutions that strengthen civil security. The Horizon-funded BEHOLDER project develops and pilots detection capabilities while integrating them into smart city and operational systems. In this way, BEHOLDER enables timely action even when the human eye cannot detect the threat. 

System requirement from operative perspective

Early warning is only useful, if provided as an input to first responders. The minimum requirement for the BEHOLDER to be successful has two pillars. First, detection and identification of hazard, and second, transmission of that information to first response units. On more detailed level, there are quite a few operative needs: 

• what hazardous substance/agent,
• is there a continuous emanation of the substance,
• how the substance or agents affects, spreads,
• is it criminal activity or an accident,
• what is the number of affected people, what is the traffic and number of people in vicinity to the incident,
• what are the contaminated or affected areas,
• where is source of origin,
• where are the evacuation routes or safe areas,
• spread of the substance until help arrives,
• estimated spread routes when first response operation is ongoing,
• how long until affected people can get help,
• what and where are the first response units…

This type of information requires not only sensor data that detects and identifies a hazardous substance and incidents. It also requires videofeed, information about ventilation systems, buildings, traffic, weather conditions, with some of that information compiled and analyzed. Estimations about how, where and when people will be affected requires information about how and in what conditions the substance spreads, which can be generated in AI-powered IoT platforms, where different data sources are fused and forecast models can be realized for the mentioned substances. 

Key restraints and their solutions

One of the key restraints in the project is the detection and identification capabilities of the sensors. All potentially harmful substances cannot be integrated into a single BEHOLDER-platform, because technological and financial resources are limited. Moreover, as new chemical and biological substances are being developed, it is virtually impossible to construe a platform that would cover all threats in the future.

These two problems, however, can be solved. BEHOLDER-solution is using an open source integration framework, where new sensors can be integrated into the BEHOLDER platform or, the other way around, shared with existing first responder platforms.

The iterative piloting phase begins in summer 2026. In Finland, we have high hopes for the project, particularly as we already have high quality smart city capabilities in Tampere city and a long tradition of multi-agency CBRNE-preparedness in the region.

 

Dr. Marko Juutinen
Senior specialist
Ministry of the Interior | Police Department