With the destruction of numerous coal seams around the world, coalfield fire is becoming a matter of global concern. This paper probes into the crack features of rock strata in a coalfield fire-stricken area, to answer to call for energy conservation and environmental protection. Specifically, the temperature variation was investigated through simulation experiments based on the coal seam model and rock strata model, and the crack development was qualitatively researched on the surface of coal seam and the overlying strata. The main conclusions are as follows. Comparing the temperature of measuring points on the same horizontal plane, it is concluded that the temperature of the coal seam above the heat source increased with the distance from the heat source within a certain range. The temperature diffusion was rather slow in coal and rock and the fire source movement was very time-consuming. The surface temperature variation of the overlying strata was similar to that of the fire source, indicating that the fire source could be roughly located by the surface temperature variation of the overlying strata. Meanwhile, the thermal destruction resulted from high temperature boosted the crack development in both coal seam and rock strata, and collapse occurred when the coal burned out. During the coalfield fire, the crack development was bolstered by the high temperature produced in the interaction between the crack field and the temperature field; besides, the cracks created a passage for oxygen supply, which favours the coal combustion. All in all, the coalfield fire development was enhanced by the interaction between the crack field and the temperature field.