The Burnt Basin mining camp is located in the headwater area of Texas Creek and Josh Creek in the Christina Range, 30 kilometres northeast of Grand Forks and 10 kilometres east of the north end of Christina Lake. The area is reached by turning west onto a gravel road from Highway 3 at a point 0.4 kilometre southwest of the Paulson Bridge, then proceeding 0.3 kilometre on the gravel road, and then west on a 4-wheel-drive road for about 3 kilometres.

Prospecting and development work in the Burnt Basin camp began in the early 1900s when the nearby Greenwood and Rossland camps were flourishing. Tammany Gold Mines, Limited, incorporated December 1899, held the Tammany group of 8 claims. The Tammany No. 1, Burnt Basin, and Jim Blaine (Lots 1135-1137, respectively) were Crown granted to the company in 1901; the Jim Blaine Fr. (Lot 1140), Burnt Basin Fr. (Lot 1141), and Last Chance Fr. (Lot 2597) were Crown granted in 1902. The workings in 1901 included a 40 metre adit on the Tammany No. 1 claim. The company charter was surrendered in 1912.

Since the 1960s a number of companies have conducted mineral surveys and some small scale mining. Much of this activity was focused on silver-lead-zinc sulphide occurrences on the Eva Bell, Halifax, Burnt Basin and Ajax claims, although more recently, the gold-bearing quartz veins on the Motherlode claim have been a favourite target for exploration. Dalex Mines Ltd. held 35 claims in 1968-69. Work included induced potential and geochemical soil surveys. Burnt Basin Mines Ltd. was incorporated in 1971 to acquire 21 Crown-granted claims and fractions and 15 mineral leases. In 1972, Donna Mines Ltd. optioned an 80 per cent interest in the property.

The largest recorded production within the Burnt Basin camp was from the Burnt basin claim (Lot 1136) with 4900 tonnes that yielded approximately 1 gram per tonne of gold, 460 grams per tonne of silver, 190 tonnes of lead and 255 tonnes of zinc. The Mother Lode (Lot 1508) (082ESE081), Eva Bell (Lot 2031) (082ESE169), Molley Gibson (Lot 595) (082ESE082), Halifax (Lot 3042) (082ESE099), and International (Lot 2873) (part of this occurrence) produced smaller tonnages.

Burnt basin is underlain by a variety of bedded rocks and igneous intrusions. The sedimentary and volcanic bedded rocks are mostly in the southern part of the camp. These units are assigned to the Mount Roberts Formation (Carboniferous to Permian) and include clean and dirty grey limestone beds of variable thickness interlayered with siltstone and minor chert. North of these units is an area of mostly massive andesitic volcanic rocks. Fragmental textures are found in places in the volcanic rock commonly associated with a carbonate matrix and small limestone lenses. These beds are cut by numerous felsic dikes and sills related to the Coryell Plutonic Suite (Eocene). In the northern part of the camp, extensive areas are underlain by granitic rocks of the Nelson Plutonic Complex (Middle Jurassic).

Mineralization in Burnt Basin is varied and includes auriferous quartz veins, magnetite/sulphide replacements, and sulphide disseminations. Disseminated pyrite is occasionally seen in granitic plutons and volcanic rocks, and scattered pyrite and pyrrhotite is common in hornfels. Replacement deposits occur in recrystallized limestone and the volcanic rocks. The altered limestone is characterized by coarse sparry calcite and garnets 1 to 5 millimetres in diameter. The volcanic rocks host skarn minerals in the form of epidote-garnet patches accompanied by pyrite and calcite. The pyrite generally comprises 1 to 2 per cent of the rock (rarely as much as 10 to 20 per cent). Most of the old workings are small replacements developed in limestone adjacent to dikes. These bodies were mined principally for silver, although they contained significant but erratic zinc, lead, copper and gold values.