To drastically reduce costs for a whole ignition facility without being the necessity of an ignition burner and gas or light oil installation for the ignition burner.

A burner port 2 formed on the side wall of a furnace 1 is provided with a start-up heavy oil burner 5 and a pulverized coal burner 8 which is disposed so as to enclose the burner 5. A sparking plug 14 is provided so that its tip confronts with a fuel injection region 5a of the burner 5. After the burner 5 being directly ignited by the plug 14, the burner 8 is ignited by the burner 5 which is allowed to serve as an auxiliary burner, thereby starting the pulverized coal burning boiler.