The properties of bubbles in a bench-scale fluidized bed reactor, 30 cm in diameter, during coal combustion were determined by means of a newly developed cooled bubble probe and a data processing system at temperatures up to 850°C and fluidization indexes up to 10 in axial and radial positions in the bed. The fluidization index above 4 and the temperature have only slight effect on the bubble properties. Their variation along the height above the gas distributor is dominant.Oxygen and Co₂-concentration profiles were measured in the bed and in the freeboard, and the o₂-profiles were calculated by means of measured bubble data and bubble models. A comparison of measured and calculated o₂-profiles indicates that the mass transfer rates between the emulsion and bubble phases are larger than the ones calculated by the models.