US Patent 11488461 Identifying smoke within a vehicle and generating a response thereto

System, methods, and other embodiments described herein relate to improving the safety of a vehicle in relation to occurrences of smoke and fire. In one embodiment, a method includes acquiring, from a radar of a subject vehicle, radar data about a passenger cabin of the subject vehicle. The method includes determining a current state of the passenger cabin according to the radar data. The method includes, responsive to identifying that the current state indicates smoke is present within the passenger cabin, controlling the subject vehicle to generate a response to the smoke.