Lucky Friday Mine: Hecla's Idaho Silver Operation After the 2023 Fire, by the Numbers

The Lucky Friday mine in northern Idaho has gone from a five-month shutdown to the best production run in its history in little more than two years. Hecla Mining Company (NYSE: HL) reported a record 5.26 million ounces of silver from the mine in 2025, up from 4.89 million ounces in 2024 (Hecla, Q4 and full-year 2025 results, Feb. 17, 2026). Here is what the filings show about output, costs, reserves and the risks that come with mining more than 9,000 feet underground.

Where it is and what it produces

Lucky Friday is a 100%-owned underground silver, lead and zinc mine about one mile east of Mullan, in Shoshone County, in Idaho's Coeur d'Alene Mining District. Hecla says it began operating in 1942, and its internal #4 Shaft reaches 9,600 feet below surface (Hecla, Lucky Friday operations page). Concentrates are trucked to Teck's smelter in Trail, British Columbia, per the same page, which makes the mine a small cross-border story as well as a US one.

Besides silver, the mine produced 34,284 tons of lead and 14,924 tons of zinc in 2025 (Hecla, Lucky Friday operations page). Silver, lead and zinc are all on the US government's final 2025 List of Critical Minerals, which added silver and lead for the first time (USGS, Nov. 14, 2025).

The 2023 fire and restart

In August 2023, a fire in the mine's secondary escapeway, the #2 shaft, halted production. By mid-September Hecla said the fire was out. It planned to get back into production by bypassing the damaged section with a 1,600-foot ramp extension and a 290-foot manway raise, and it noted an underground property-insurance sub-limit of $50 million (Hecla, Lucky Friday update, Sept. 18, 2023). The outage cut 2023 output to 3.1 million ounces, 30% below 2022. Production restarted on January 9, 2024 (Hecla, 2023 production release, Jan. 2024). The mine produced 1.1 million ounces in the first quarter of 2024 and was back at full production during that quarter (Hecla, Q1 2024 results).

2025: record output, higher costs than the group

Hecla credits the 2025 record to 5% higher throughput and a 2% higher milled grade. The mill averaged 1,170 tons per day (Hecla, 2025 production and 2026 guidance, Jan. 26, 2026).

Costs matter as much as ounces. In 2025, Lucky Friday's all-in sustaining cost (AISC) was $21.98 per silver ounce after by-product credits, with a cash cost of $8.66 (Hecla, full-year 2025 results). That is well above Hecla's consolidated silver AISC of $11.28, and above Greens Creek in Alaska, which reported a negative AISC of ($2.36) because of its large gold and base-metal credits (same source). For investors, this means Lucky Friday adds volume and long reserve life, while Greens Creek supplies most of the margin.

2026 so far

In the second quarter of 2026, Lucky Friday set a quarterly record of about 1.53 million ounces, at an AISC of $17.08 per ounce. It also posted a record site-level free cash flow of $88 million (Hecla, Q2 2026 results, Aug. 4, 2026). Hecla tightened full-year 2026 guidance for the mine to 4.9–5.2 million ounces. It cut cash-cost guidance to $9.00–$9.75 per ounce but raised the bottom of the AISC range to $24.50–$26.00 because of higher sustaining capital (same source). The surface cooling project, needed as the mine gets deeper and hotter, was 88% complete and due to finish in September 2026 (same source). Hecla's third-quarter 2026 results were not yet out when we checked this article.

Reserves and mine life

At December 31, 2025, Lucky Friday held proven and probable reserves of 71.6 million ounces of silver at 11.2 ounces per ton. Hecla says the mine replaced 5.0 million ounces of reserves in 2025 and that mineralization remains open at depth (Hecla, reserves and resources release, Feb. 13, 2026). Those reserves rest on a $25/oz silver price assumption (Hecla, Lucky Friday operations page). Hecla's 2026 guidance points to a reserve mine life of fifteen years (Hecla, Q2 2026 results). That is shorter than the seventeen years given in January 2026 (Hecla, Jan. 26, 2026), so watch it in the next reserve update.

What it means for investors

Three points stand out. First, the restart worked: two straight years of growth after the fire point to an operating recovery, not a one-off rebound. Second, Lucky Friday is a high-cost mine within Hecla. Its AISC guidance in the mid-$20s per ounce leaves it more exposed than Greens Creek if silver prices fall. Hecla has also tied part of its 2026 cost increase to profit-sharing payments driven by elevated silver prices (Hecla, Jan. 26, 2026), so costs tend to rise along with prices. Third, depth is the main risk. The 2023 fire showed that one piece of failed infrastructure can stop the whole mine. The cooling project and the Underhand Closed Bench mining method, which Hecla developed to manage seismic risk, both address the same issue.

None of this is a forecast of Hecla's share price. Mine-level numbers are only one input, and the company's results depend just as much on Greens Creek, Keno Hill in Yukon and metal prices.

For more coverage, see our silver hub, United States mining news and company profiles.

How we checked this: AI-drafted from the sources linked above and checked against them by our AI editor.