A new intumescent coating model including the equation of radiative heat transfer in the expanding porous carbon layer is developed in this paper. In addition, the numerical treatment for the expanding coating layer is by considering the expansion effects on the property parameters, instead of dealing with the variation of grid system. The results show the reasonable expansion behaviors and heat transfer phenomena of intumescent coating as subject to a high heat flux. In addition, this study also shows significant effects of thermal conductivity and radiant extinction coefficient on the transient and steady performances of the intumescent coating.