To provide a continuous heating furnace which is provided with regenerative burners arranged on both side walls of an upper zone and a lower zone of a preheating area and a heating area, and roof burners or axial-flow burners in an upper zone of a soaking area, and which is capable of inhibiting black smoke from blowing out from clearances of an extracting door of the continuous heating furnace.

The continuous heating furnace is provided with a charging door 21 for charging a billet in one side of the furnace body, an extracting door 22 for extracting the billet in another side, regenerative burners arranged on both side walls in a preheating area 5 and heating areas 6 and 7, roof burners 17a arranged in a ceiling portion of a soaking area 8, and regenerative burners arranged in both side walls of a lower zone 10 of the soaking area 8, wherein a partition wall 23 crossing the furnace body and having a height lower than a walking beam is erected on a hearth between the regenerative burner 27b located nearest the extraction side among the regenerative burners in the lower zone of the soaking area 8 and the regenerative burner 28b adjacent thereto.