This study compares the flame structure of ethanol and dimethyl ether (DME) in a hot and diluted oxidiser experimentally and computationally. Experiments were conducted on a Jet in Hot Coflow (JHC) burner, with the fuel jet issuing into a 1250-K coflow at three oxygen levels. Planar measurements using OH-LIF, CH2O-LIF, and Rayleigh scattering images reveal that the overall spatial distribution and evolution of OH, CH2O, and temperature were quite similar for the two fuels. For both the ethanol and the DME flames, a transitional flame structure occurred as the coflow oxygen level increased from 3% to 9%. This indicates that the flames shift away from the MILD combustion regime. Reaction flux analyses of ethanol and DME were performed with the OPPDIF code, and ethane (C2H6) was also included in the analyses for comparison. These analyses reveal that the H-2/O-2 pathways are very important for both ethanol and DME in the 3% O-2 cases. In contrast, the importance of fuel-specific reactions overtakes that of H-2/O-2 reactions when fuels are burnt in the cold air or in the vitiated oxidant stream with 9% 02. Unsteady laminar flamelet analyses were also performed to investigate the ignition processes and help interpret experimental results. Flamelet equations were solved in time and mixture fraction field, which was provided by non-reactive Large-Eddy Simulation (LES). (C) 2018 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.