ABSTRACT Glass breaking in fires is an important practical problem since a window acts as a wall prior to breaking and as a vent after breaking. As Emmons explained, windows break in fires due to thermal stress from the differential heating of the central portion and the shaded edge. If the depth of shading around the edge is much greater than the glass thickness, one can assume that the edge remains at its initial temperature. This paper determines the surface temperature history of the glass. Typical property values suggest the range of 50'C-100'C for the breaking T. Here the transient, one-dimensional (into the glass normal to the pane), inhomogenous (in-depth radiation absorption) energy equation is solved using an innovative Laplace Transform technique suggested by Baum. Time varying incident radiative flux and the glass temperatures are included. These equations are solved numerically by using the trapezoidal rule for numerical integration and Newton-Raphson's method for determining the roots of nonlinear equations. Results are presented for typical values of the governing dimensionless parameters.