Abstract <p>The ignition characteristics of a methane–air mixture in a single plasma channel maintained by a pulsed-periodic nanosecond discharge with a pulse repetition rate of 5 MHz are considered. The dependence of the ignition delay time and combustion wave formation on the discharge channel current is investigated. A key point is that high electric fields (~100–300 Td) existing during the first few nanoseconds of each cycle ensure mixture ionization and the efficient production of chemically active particles. The characteristic decay time of the generated plasma exceeds the pause time between pulses, resulting in a noticeable level of pre-ionization of the plasma channel before the next discharge pulse. After the discharge is switched off, combustion wave propagation is maintained for several milliseconds. Combustion of the combustible mixture occurs in a channel whose volume is two to three orders of magnitude larger than the channel created by the pulsed discharge itself. The obtained results allow one to conclude that the use of such a distributed multi-channel pulse-periodic discharge of nanosecond duration for ignition of combustible mixtures can be an alternative to spark ignition.</p>