Abstract: In order to research the combustion characteristics of cigarette during smoking intensively, a method for characterizing the instantaneous burning rate of cigarette was proposed based on cigarette temperature measurement technology, wherein the instantaneous burning rate was characterized by the displacement of characteristic temperature T_0.5 of burning cone. According to the characteristics of gas temperature distribution and feature of heat transfer in burning cone, the burning cone was divided into four regions, ash region, transition from ash to combustion regions, combustion region, pyrolysis region. The results showed that:1) By characterizing the instantaneous burning rate of cigarette by the displacement of characteristic temperature T_0.5 of burning cone and relating burning temperature to burning rate, it became possible to obtain the amount of tobacco involved in combustion during smoking realtimely and accurately. 2) The temperature range of each region in burning cone were constructed. The variation of volume of each region in burning cone was obtained during smoking, it was found that the volume of combustion region in 3R4F cigarette increased and that of pyrolysis region decreased with the proceeding of smoking.