This paper is concerned with the thermal and thermal stress waves in nonlinear elastic solids subjected to the impulsive heating. The formulation of the problem is based on the generalized theory of thermoelasticity proposed by Lord and Shulman. A set of generalized equation which governs the propagation of plane, cylindrical and spherical waves in nonlinear elastic solids is presented. The solutions are obtained by using the characteristic method. Numerical results for the propagation of thermal and thermal stress waves in nonlinear elastic plates are presented in the graphical form.