In this manuscript, the advancement of one‐dimensional shock waves propagating through a non‐ideal reacting gas is examined. Considering the shock wave as a propagating discontinuity surface, a pair of evolution equations describing the strength of the shock and the first‐order discontinuity for variable initial data are obtained. The truncation approximations are used to obtain the exponent of shock velocity for the case of strong shock with constant initial data and compared with those exponents obtained from Guderley's scheme and Chisnell–Chester–Whitham (CCW) rule. The effects of non‐ideal and reaction parameters on the shock evolution in the case of arbitrary shock strength are examined and compared with those obtained from the CCW rule. Furthermore, the global behaviors of shock strength and induced discontinuity for different values of non‐ideal and reaction parameters are analyzed.