Time‐resolved luminescence data from heavily nitrogen doped ZnSe (total N concentration exceeding mid‐1018/cm3) is presented. The luminescence exhibited a decay time and a rise time which increased with decreasing energy of observation. Furthermore, both the decay times and rise times decreased with increasing temperature. These observations are consistent with the following model: (i) a band of states is created due to fluctuations in the ionized impurity concentrations; (ii) a portion of the carriers captured by the shallower impurity states are transferred to deeper states prior to recombination. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.