The effects of swirl intensity on non-reacting and reacting flow characteristics in a flat flame burner (FFB) with four types of swirlers were investigated. Experiments using the PIV method were conducted for several flow conditions with four swirl numbers of 0, 0.26, 0.6 and 1.24 in non-reacting flow. The results show that the strong swirling flow causes a recirculation, which has the toroidal structures, and spreads above the burner exit plane. Reacting flow characteristics such as temperature and the NO concentrations were also investigated in comparison with non-reacting flow characteristics. The mean flame temperature was measured as the function of radial distance, and the results show that the strong swirl intensity causes the mean temperature distributions to be uniform. However the mean temperature distributions at the swirl number of 0 show the typical distribution of long flames. NO concentration measurements show that the central toroidal recirculation zone caused by the strong swirl intensity results in much greater reduction in NO emissions, compared to the non-swirl condition. For classification into the flame structure interiorly, the turbulence Reynolds number and the Damkohler number have been examined at each condition. The interrelation between reacting and non-reacting flows shows that flame structures with swirl intensity belong to a wrinkled laminar-flame regime.