This work experimentally studies the processes of explosive disintegration of heated fuel droplets with variations of the added water volume. The studies are performed for typical liquid fuels burnt in power plants, as well as flammable liquids being the main fuel component: kerosene, diesel, gasoline, oil, turbine and automobile oil. The minimum (sufficient for the explosive breakup of droplets) heating temperature and the ratio of concentrations of water and flammable liquid are determined. The optical method of Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (with the operation principle based on the laser illumination of a drop or a liquid film with the introduction of a fluorophore dye) is used to determine temperatures at the inter-component boundary that are sufficient for the micro-explosion of a two-liquid drop. The influence of laser action on the drop on the processes of its heating, evaporation, transformation and breakup is evaluated. The effect of the laser on the mode of explosive disintegration of droplets, the time of its heating and destruction, and the minimum (limiting) temperature of droplet disintegration is determined. Laser irradiation intensifies heating and breakup of fuel droplets as a result of three processes: an additional radiative heat flux; the perturbation (deformation) of the medium interface; and a considerable temperature gradient on the inter-component boundaries, leading to high velocity of convection flows and the formation of vortex structures in the vicinity of the medium interface. The technology of fuel droplets disintegration is proposed. (C) 2018 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.