The combined action of two factors on organisms can be either antagonistic, non-effective, additive or synergistic. Although synergism is of biological importance, the common features of synergistic interaction between harmful environmental factors are largely unknown. The purpose of this study is to establish general rules describing the response of various organisms to the combined action of heat with another inactivating agent. Synergistic interaction due to the simultaneous treatment of hyperthermia with ionizing or non-ionizing radiation has been analyzed using the experimental data mainly obtained with yeast cells. In addition, the results reported by others for viruses, bacterial spores, cultured mammalian cells, plants and animals were also analyzed to check the regularities revealed. The common rules of the synergistic interaction obtained in this study can be summarized as follows. For any constant rate of exposure, the synergy can be observed only within a certain temperature range. An increase in exposure rate resulted in an increase of this specific temperature and vice versa. For a constant temperature at which the irradiation occurs, synergy can be observed within a certain dose rate range. As the exposure temperature is reduced, the optimal intensity decreases and vice versa. A new conception taken into consideration those regularities can make a clue for environmental disaster preventive analysis of the synergy of radiation with the other factor.