Abstract: A new discrete firefly algorithm was proposed to solve the shortest escape path problem in underground coal mine. Firstly, the firefly individual was initialized using transfer probability method. And then, a new efficient encoding and decoding method was proposed to redefine space distance, the maximum fluorescence intensity and fluorescence relative brightness of the firefly. So the firefly individual state can be expressed as an effective path from the starting point to the target point. In order to increase the diversity of solutions and to prevent the solutions falling into the local optimum, disturbed operation was carried out to the represented path of the firefly by a certain probability. After several iterations, the shortest path of the solution can be obtained. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can converge to the optimal solution with the smaller population size and less iterations than the other algorithms, and has strong convergence and flexibility, which can be used to solve any problem of the shortest path.