Cultural heritage and archaeological sites are exposed to the risk of fire and early warning is the only way to avoid losses and damages. The use of terrestrial systems, typically based on video cameras, is currently the most promising solution for advanced automatic wildfire surveillance and monitoring. Video cameras are sensitive in visible spectra and can be used either for flame or smoke detection. This paper presents and compares three video-based flame detection techniques, which were developed within the FIRESENSE EU research project. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.