Abstract: In this paper we consider a system of two reaction-diffusion equations that modelsdiffusional-thermal combustion with stepwise ignition-temperature kinetics and fractional reactionorder 0 < α< 1. We turn the free interface problem into a scalar free boundary problem coupled with an integral equation. The main intermediary step is to reduce the scalar problem to the study of a non-C^1vector field in dimension 2.The latter is treated by qualitative topological methods based on the Poincaré-Bendixson Theorem. The phase portrait is determined and the existence of a stable manifold at the origin is proved. A significant result is that the settling time to reach the origin is finite, meaning that the trailing interface is finite in contrast to the case α=1, but in accordance with α=0. Finally, the integro-differential system is solved via a fixed-point method.