The risk of titanium fire increases significantly with the development of future aero-engine, however, the burning mechanisms of titanium alloys remain uncertain. Therefore, the ignition behavior and mechanism of near α high-temperature titanium alloy are studied in this work by an integrated experiment method, including laser-oxygen concentration ignition method, infrared temperature measurement and observation of molten metal by high-speed camera. Based on this, the ignition boundary curve is determined and the ignition temperature of the alloy is found to decrease from 1595 to 1527 ℃ with the laser power increasing from 200 to 325 W and oxygen concentration increasing from 21% to 60%. The ignition microstructure is characterized by FIB and TEM to study the evolution of reaction products. Pores are found to form beneath the TiO ₂surface layer, which can be attributed to the instablity of TiO. The failure mechanism of protective oxide layer is further analyzed according to the thermal stress caused oxide layer damage model. When the temperature approaches the ignition temperature, which is below the melting point, the high vapor pressure of TiO leads to the formation of porous defects beneath the TiO ₂surface, thus accelerating the fracture and failure of the TiO ₂layer under thermal stress. It is revealed that critical conditions of temperature and instantaneous temperature change rate are needed to realize ignition. Based on this, an ignition model is further constructed to discuss the relationship among ignition temperature, laser power and oxgyen concentration. According to the experimental data fitting, the reaction activation energy of TA19 alloy during the ignition stage is calculated to be about 280 kJ/mol, and the function for calculating ignition temperature is given as follows: $ 1.2 \times {10^{10}}{{\mathrm{e}}^{\frac{{ - 280000}}{{R{T_{{\text{ig}}}}}}}}{c^{\frac{1}{2}}} + $ $ 0.52{P_{\mathrm{L}}} - 315 = 0 $ . This provides a theoretical reference for predicting the ignition temperatures of near α high temperature titanium alloy and other types of titanium alloys under complex airflow conditions in aircraft engines.