Fire Assay

Fire Assaying is the quantitative determination in which a metal or metals are separated from impurities by fusion processes and weighed in order to determine the amount present in the original sample.

Metals recovered in fire assaying are the metals that emerge from the fusion of the material in an assay furnace, for gold, usually at temperatures of about 2,000 Degrees F. The Fire Assay Method is centuries old, but it is still one of the most reliable methods for performing assays (to determine the metal content of a ore) of ores that contain precious (noble) metals - Gold, Silver and Platinum. Ore from the mine, or exploration sampling program is scientifically sampled using a statistically accurate method fitting the desired accuracy, it is then prepared by crushing, splitting and pulverizing. This is a process referred to as sample preparation.