The bonded distributed feedback (DFB) fiber laser (FL) acoustic emission sensor and the intensity response of the DFB-FL to external acoustic emissions are investigated. The dynamic sensitivity of the DFB-FL is calibrated by a referenced piezoelectric receiver. In the DFB-FL we used here, the minimum detectable signal is 2×10 6 m/s at 5 kHz. Using wavelet packet technology, the collected signals are analyzed, which confirms that an intensity-modulated DFB-FL sensor can be used to detect acoustic emission signals.