Based on fractal theory, different two-dimensional fractal structures were constructed to simulate the practical porous media. Effective thermal conductivity for porous media was calculated by means of the finite volume method. Theoretical analysis of thermal response in the porous media under various heating conditions was performed with a multi-layer hyperbolic heat conduction model with volumetric heat generation. The results obtained in this paper indicate that pore size and micro distribution have a far-reaching impact on the heat conduction in porous media. If we assumed that both the thermal conductivity and the heat capacity of the solid phase is larger than those of liquid phase, decreasing the pore size and porosity is helpful to enhance the heat transfer in porous media and the peak of temperature increases with pore size and porosity. With the same pore size and porosity, the effect of the pore micro-geometric distribution on heat conduction in porous media is obvious. The method presented in this paper may suggest a valuable approach to theoretically evaluate the effect of pore micro-geometric structure on heat conduction in porous media. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.