A smoke detection method and system, which uses the effects of the diffusion of light to identify the presence of smoke in a monitored area, are disclosed. This method comprises the steps of: (1) electronically capturing a sequence of images of a light source in the monitored area, (2) transferring these images into an image buffer, (3) scanning these images to identify the chunks of adjacent pixels with brightness values above a prescribed threshold, (4) maintaining the sequence of such chunks obtained from consecutive images in a cluster stack, (5) analyzing the evolution of the features of each of these cluster over a prescribed period of time to identify the patterns that are caused by particle-induced light diffusion, and (6) issuing a prescribed system response in the event such light diffused patterns are identified.