A system for detecting a hot surface is provided. The system includes a sensor for sensing an infrared radiation radiating from the hot surface and a high pass filter to eliminate low frequency components from the sensor signal. The system also includes an absolute value module to compute absolute values of a filtered signal, a first comparator to compare output of the absolute value module to a first threshold and a peak detector to report a peak value of the sensor signal's output. The system further includes a second comparator to compare output of peak detector to a second threshold.