The susceptibility of coal to spontaneous combustion is a physical-chemical property of coal that can be determined by a laboratory test. A number of laboratory methods verifying the coal susceptibility to spontaneous combustion exist, e.g. the oxidation method under adiabatic conditions, method according to the author Olpinski, method of pulse calorimetry, and CPT (Crossing Point Temperature) method. Any versatile method has not been so far developed, which would become a generally respected and utilized laboratory procedure of objective assessment. The paper deals with the verification of the widely used adiabatic oxidation method. The modification of the method in question consists in the adjustment of the test process by increasing the initial temperature. This procedure enables shortening the test process. Shortening the laboratory test duration creates conditions for wider utilization of the method in practice. The paper presents results of 36 tests of Ostrava-Karvina Coalfield coal samples which confirmed an applicability of the modified adiabatic method in practice. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.