The aim of this work was to demonstrate a model for a spherical biomass particle combusting at high temperatures with reduced number of variables. The model is based on the observation that combustion of a small particle includes three main phases: heating up, pyrolysis, and char conversion. It is assumed that the pyrolysis begins as soon as the particle surface attains a pyrolysis temperature, yielding a char front, moving towards the center of particle as time passes. The formulation of the heating up and pyrolysis phases is based on an integral method which allows describing the energy conservation with an ordinary differential equation. The char combustion model is according to the shrinking core approximation. Model validation is carried out by comparing the predictions with experiments of sawdust particles taken from the literature, and with computations of partial differential equation-based models. Satisfactory agreement is achieved between the predictions and experimental data. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.