The invention relates to a method for detecting hydrocarbon spill in an aqueous medium from a plurality of images of the surface of the aqueous medium obtained by an infrared camera comprising analyzing an image of the plurality of images; checking whether at least one region that could be identified as spill is displayed in the image, in case of positive result, assessing whether the point representing a multidimensional vector of characteristics associated with the region is within a reference zone defined in a multidimensional space, this reference zone being representative of multidimensional vectors of characteristics of regions corresponding to real spills; if it is determined that the point representing the multidimensional vector of characteristics is within the multidimensional reference zone, generating a warning signal of spill.