Engineering ceramics as sapphire are widely used in industry owing to their superior mechanical and corrosion properties. However, micromachining of sapphire is a considerable challenge due to its transparency. Recently, direct ablation of sapphire has been demonstrated with a visible laser pulse at sufficiently high laser intensity. In this work, the theoretical model for pulsed laser ablation of sapphire is suggested and numerical analysis is carried out using the model. Sapphire ablation begins with plasma generation by the laser interaction with surface defects, impurities and contaminations in the initial stage of machining. Subsequent absorption of the visible laser beam can be explained by three mechanisms: metalization of sapphire surface due to the EUV radiation from the hot plasma, increments of surface roughness and temperature-dependent absorption coefficient. Comparison of the computation results with experimental observation indicates that the proposed model of sapphire is reasonable.