Patent ID: 8306446

Claim:
An image forming apparatus comprising: a rotatable image heating member configured to heat a toner image on a recording material in a nip; a rotatable pressing member configured to press against said image heating member to form the nip; a mechanism configured to space said image heating member and said pressing member from each other; a temperature detecting member configured to detect the temperature of said pressing member; a cooling device configured to cool said pressing member; a rotational speed changing mechanism configured to change the rotational speed of said pressing member; and an executing portion configured to execute, when the temperature of said pressing member reaches an upper limit temperature during execution of an image formation job of continuously forming images, a cooling mode for cooling said pressing member by said cooling device in a state that said pressing member and said heating member are spaced from each other while rotating said pressing member at a second rotational speed higher than a first rotational speed which is a speed during the execution of the job.