The ignition temperatures for metallic powders on the surface of an electrically heated filament are measured optically at different heating rates. The effects of the powder coating thickness on the ignition temperature and mechanism are not well understood. To interpret the results, a heat transfer model has been developed for multilayer powder coating on top of an electrically heated filament. The model uses the energy balance approach for the numerical heat transfer analysis. Powder particles represent individual nodes in the finite difference method. The one-dimensional geometry considers a stack of particles in a simplified hexagonal close-packed arrangement placed axisymmetrically around the filament perimeter. An Arrhenius type expression is used to describe the chemical reaction leading to ignition. One critical parameter in the heat transfer model is the contact conductance between the particles. The contact conductance was examined experimentally implementing the flash diffusivity method for a powder sample freely loaded in a thin cylindrical cavity made in a heat insulator. The flash diffusivity method exposes the sample's front surface to an impulse of a CO2 laser and the resulting temperature profile of the rear surface is measured with a micro-thermocouple. The temperature profile is used to compute the thermal diffusivity. The developed model and comparisons between the computational and experimental results on the kinetics of ignition of selected samples will be discussed.