Theoretical models to evaluate the flammable zones of mixtures made up of hydrocarbon, carbon dioxide and air have been proposed in present study. A three-step reaction hypothesis for hydrocarbon combustion was introduced for predicting the upper flammability limit. The method to predict the parameters at fuel inertization point was put forward as well. Validation of these models has been conducted on existing experimental data reported in the literature, including the cases of methane, propane, propylene and isobutane, and an acceptable precision has been achieved. The average relative differences between the estimated results and experimental ones, except for the results at fuel inertization point, are less than 8.8% and 3.3% for upper and lower flammability limit, respectively. This work also indicated that these models possess practical application capacity and can provide safe prediction limits for nonflammable ranges of hydrocarbon diluted with carbon dioxide. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.