Abstract: A fiber grating strain sensing system is used to locate and characterize a high speed environmental event that destroys one or more fiber grating strain sensors as it passes them. The system is very suitable for the detection and characterization of a high intensity pressure wave such as a blast wave due to a detonation. A fiber grating strain sensor is oriented so that the high speed environmental effect passes over it and its reflective spectral profile changes as portions of the fiber grating strain sensor are destroyed. The reflective spectral profile from one or more fiber grating strain sensors are then mixed with the spectral profile of an optical filter onto a high speed output detector. A reference detector may be used to normalize the output signal.