The Fire Mountain occurrence is located about 3.5 kilometres southeast of Mount Sanford on a mountain unofficially labelled "Fire Mountain", about 53 kilometres east of the community of Atlin.
The showing is located on "Fire Mountain" in an area underlain by rocks of the Mississippian to Triassic Kedahda Formation of the Cache Creek Complex. These rocks consist of northeast trending cherts, cherty argillites and argillites. A small stock of quartz feldspar porphyry (leuco-granodiorite to alaskite in composition) intrudes these rocks on the east side of the mountain and appears to be related to rocks of the Late Cretaceous Surprise Lake Plutonic Suite. The stock measures about 100 by 360 metres and has its long axis parallel to the trend of bedding. The main body of the Surprise Lake batholith lies about 16 kilometres to the north. The contact of the Early Tertiary Llangorse batholith is found within 2 kilometres to the south.
A pronounced reddish brown gossan has formed over the mineralized zone and oxidation with some surficial leaching occurs to depths of 30 metres. Sericite and kaolinite alteration of the feldspar has occurred within the porphyry stock and a large altered silicified zone, about 800 metres, occurs in the enclosing brecciated chert.
Molybdenite occurs as disseminations within the porphyry and in quartz veins within the silicified zone. It occurs mainly along fractures in the quartz veins and less frequently in quartz-pyrite-calcite veins as disseminations or along the margin or down the centre of the vein. Chalcopyrite is seen in veins mainly near the outer margin of the silicified zone and as disseminations (syngenetic) with pyrite and pyrrhotite in unaltered argillite. Galena, sphalerite and arsenopyrite are observed only in drill core. Rutile is observed in quartz veins and in drill core. Traces of scheelite were also found in the porphyry.
In 1971, preliminary geological, geochemical and planimetric surveys were conducted by Canadian Johns-Manville followed by a drilling progam in 1972. The six holes drilled totalled 1494.4 metres but only three holes were filed for assessment. In 1972, Canadian Johns-Manville completed further geological and geochemical work on the property and ran a small magnetometer survey over a central detailed grid system.
In 1985, J.R. Woodcock acquired core areas of the Fire Mountain property when Canadian Johns-Manville allowed the mineral claims to lapse. He subsequently completed a petrographic study of the previously collected rock samples and produced detailed descriptions and classifications of the Fire Mountain rocks.
In 2003, bcMetals Corporation acquired the Fire Mountain property by way of an option agreement with Las Casas Energy Corporation, a privately owned company from Alberta. The 2004 exploration program on Fire Mountain by bcMetals consisted of the drilling of three deep, vertical diamond-drill holes totalling 3379 metres. Drilling intersected variable molybdenum mineralization hosted in the silicified and weakly sericitized, hornfelsed metasediments and the younger porphyry dikes that intrude the metasediments. The dikes were not always preferentially mineralized in relation to the hostrock and in some cases were weakly mineralized compared to the adjacent, silicified hornfelsed sediments. Accompanying the fine quartz-healed microfracturing are fine hairline, bluish, quartz-molybdenum veinlets and larger banded or ribboned quartz-molybdenite veins with fine, margin-parallel disseminated molybdenite. The quartz in these veins has a sugary appearance. In zones of stronger mineralization, these early veins are cut by coarsely crystalline, often subvertical or flat quartz veins with coarse blebs, books and stringers of molybdenite along the vein margins. When these veins crosscut steep, intramineral, open, vuggy quartz-dolomite-pyrite healed fractures, crystalline molybdenite is often deposited in the vug walls. The first drillhole, FM04-1, intersected the longest continuously mineralized section of molybdenite mineralization from 716.00 to 1115.30 metres; a 300.30 metre section assayed 0.058 per cent molybdenum (Assessment Report 27508). The drilling did not succeed in intersecting an underlying intrusive stock or a Climax-type molybdenum deposit related to the apex of this postulated stock.
In November 2005, bcMetals terminated its option for 75% interest in the Fire Mountain property, with Las Casas. In 2008, J.R. Woodcock conducted a study of alteration and mineralization trends and incorporated data from three previous studies to define a site for further drilling.
