As an essential carrier of power transmission, the high-voltage cable will cause significant economic losses once a fire occurs, so early warning of cable fires is particularly important. Power cables are mainly made of polymer materials, which can release a large amount of organic gases when heated. Monitoring the cable fire state can be achieved by detecting these organic gases. In this paper, ZnO, In2O3, SnO2 and TiO2 were separately modified on the surface of WO3 by a two-step method. Subsequently, gas sensors with the modified WO3-based sensitive materials were fabricated, and their sensing performances were characterized. The results showed that the surface modification sensitivity can improve the WO3-based gas sensor''s response to YJV22 and YJY23 cable vapors. For example, the maximum response value of ZnO modified WO3 to YJV22 cable vapors at 81 ℃ was up to 15.4. Furthermore, the response time of the sensors was less than 30 s, and the recovery time was less than 6 min. Additionally, the sensors displayed good repeatability, which is expected to be applied to cable fire warning.