Incineration methods are becoming increasingly important from the view point of the need to minimize the environmental impact of waste tyre disposal. Combustion of waste tyre, one high ash coal and tyre-coal blends with 10, 30 and 50% waste tyre were investigated by means of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) carried out at 20 K min(-1) in the temperature range from ambient temperature to 1273 K. And effects of the mixed proportion between coal and waste tyre on the combustion process, ignition and burnout characteristics were also studied. The results indicate that the combustion of waste tyre is controlled by the emission of volatile matter, the regions are more complex for waste tyre (three or more peaks) than for coal (one peak). Also as compared with the case of burning only high ash coal, the incorporation of waste tyre can improve the combustion characteristics of high ash coal, especially the ignition performance and the peak weight loss compared with the separate burning of waste tyre and coal. Moreover, comparisons of the TG-DTG profiles between experimental and calculational results, it is indicate that there is a comparatively important difference, the co-combustion characteristics is the coupling effect between waste tyre and coal. The data resulting also showed that the co-combustion of waste tyre and low quanlitied coal as fuel is feasible. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.