The various underground workings of the Blue Flame Colliery extend from the northeast bank of Lamont (Nine-mile) Creek eastward, along the northern parts of district Lots 962 and 148, to within 200 metres of Highway 3. The colliery comprised three mines, identified from west to east as the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 (Prospect) mines. The mines are 10 to 11 kilometres southwest of Princeton.

This coal deposit occurs near the southern margin of the Princeton Basin, a northerly trending half-graben superimposed on volcanics and sediments of the Upper Triassic Nicola Group. The basin is separated into a northern and southern area by the gentle, northwest striking Rainbow Lake anticline. The southern area, in which this deposit occurs, is a structural depression with beds dipping 10 to 20 degrees south near Princeton, and gently east between Asp (China) Creek and the Tulameen River. South of Princeton are two major east-striking asymmetric anticlines with gentle to moderate southerly dips continuing to the south. On the western margin of the basin, the strata dips approximately 50 degrees east. In the southern part of the basin, two north to northwest-plunging anticlines are present. The basin is bounded and cut in places by a number of approximately north to northeast-striking, westerly dipping faults. The main faults are the Asp Creek fault and the Boundary fault.

The Blue Flame Colliery is hosted in a sequence of sandstone, shale, waterlain rhyolite tephra (tuff) and coal, up to 2000 metres thick, comprising the Eocene Allenby Formation (Princeton Group). The mine is developed in the Princeton-Black-Blue Flame coal zone, the stratigraphically lowest and thickest of four significant coal- bearing zones in a 530-metre section in the Allenby Formation. Its thickness varies from 1.6 to 19.2 metres with about 9.1 metres of coal. The coal occurs in bands 7 centimetres to 5.5 metres thick with interbeds of shaly coal, bentonite, sandstone and shale separating the individual seams. The partings and beds associated with the coal change thickness and stratigraphic position laterally, making correlation difficult. Coal quality also varies laterally. The Princeton-Black-Blue Flame coal zone was also mined at the Princeton Colliery (092HSE089), Princeton-Tulameen mine (092HSE209), Tulameen Collieries (092HSE210), the Pleasant Valley Nos. 2 and 4 mines (092HSE211) and the Black mine (092HSE212).

The coal-bearing zone at the Blue Flame Colliery strikes 075 to 110 degrees, striking approximately 095 degrees over most of its length, and dips 7 to 16 degrees north. The deposit has been mined over a total strike length of 1800 metres, and has been traced downdip in the No. 1 mine for up to 460 metres. Minor faulting is evident in the Nos. 2 and 3 mines. The zone is gently folded about a northwest-plunging anticline in the No. 2 mine.

The coal zone is 7.3 to 10.7 metres thick, and appears to thicken to the east. Numerous bands of clay, shale and dirty coal up to 0.57 metre thick are present in this zone. Mining was therefore limited to a section of cleaner coal, with only a few thin rock and clay bands, in the central 1.8 to 3.0 metres of the zone. A few irregular nodules of pyrite are reported to occur in the coal in the No. 1 mine (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1928, page 483).

The Blue Flame No. 1 mine was opened up and operated by Lynden Coal Company Ltd. during 1927 and 1928. Subsequent operators included Blue Flame Coal Company Ltd. (1929-1931), Blue Flame Collieries Ltd. (1932), and Wilson Mining and Investment Company Ltd. (1933-1937). The mine was reopened by Taylor Burson Coal Company Ltd. in 1951 in order to recover coal left in pillars, after abandoning its previous mine to the north (Jackson No. 1 mine, 092HSE214). With the completion of pillar recovery in 1953, the company opened up the adjacent Blue Flame No. 2 mine to the east in the same year. The operation was taken over by Blue Flame Colliery Ltd. in 1957. After abandoning the No. 2 mine in the same year, the company opened up the Blue Flame No. 3 mine near the Hope-Princeton Highway in 1958. Production ceased in 1961. Total production between 1928 and 1961 amounted to 193,531 tonnes of coal.