Abstract The present work considers transient heat conduction in a finite medium exposed to a pulse surface heating by using the generalized macroscopic conduction model. The analytical solution is derived by using Green's function method and finite integral transform technique. Calculations are performed to exhibit various behavior of thermal transports in the medium, such as wave, wavelike, and diffusion. By using the temperature solution, the inverse analysis is performed by nonlinear least-squares method for determining the two relaxation parameters and thermal diffusivity from a given temperature response. The nonlinear system of algebraic equations resulting from the sensitivity matrix is solved by the Levenberg–Marquardt iterative algorithm. The inverse analysis is utilized to estimate the relaxation parameters and the thermal diffusivity from the simulated experimental non-Fourier temperature response obtained by the direct calculation.