A chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons detection system is disclosed that comprises an array of spatially-disparate hazardous material sensors that all feed into a centralized system control center. This enables the embodiment to receive and coordinate in one place all of the hazardous material sensors spread over a wide area, and, therefore, enables an alarm to be quickly issued in the event of a real attack. To accurately reduce false alarms, the illustrative embodiment requires that at least N of M neighboring stations report an alarm for the same hazardous material within an interval of time, and that the values of at least one of N and M change and are based on at least one environmental factor.