This study investigates photomultiplier tube (PMT) nonlinearities, relevant for lifetime phosphor thermometry, at various decay times to assess and minimize the impact on temperature measurement accuracy. The focus is single-shot measurements performed in harsh environments where phosphor signal attenuation often is a concern. The sensitivity of decay time measurements to changing phosphorescence intensity is therefore investigated. The experimental results show that for the studied phosphors and detectors, shorter decay times between 20 ns and 6 µs, saturation effects in the PMTs decreased the measured decay time with increasing signal attenuation. For longer phosphorescence decay times, in the millisecond regime, nonlinearity effects led to an increase in the measured decay time with increasing signal attenuation. The specific detector nonlinearity response will vary among detectors, but the introduced methodology for detector analysis is a useful resource for assessing and improving accuracy in lifetime phosphor thermometry measurements.