The deposit is modest in scale, roughly two and a half to three metres across and less than half a metre deep, but it belongs to a category of site found in considerable numbers across Ireland, and its proximity to a second, related feature nearby makes the location quietly interesting.

The spread was uncovered in 2000 during topsoil stripping in advance of construction of the Ballincollig-Ballineen gas pipeline, and was excavated that same year, though machinery had already caused significant damage before archaeologists could begin work. What survived was an irregularly shaped deposit extending southward beyond the pipeline corridor, meaning part of it remains unexcavated in the field. Just 1.7 metres to the east lies a fulacht fia, a type of site typically consisting of a trough and a mound of fire-cracked stones and ash, associated with prehistoric cooking or industrial heating processes, possibly also used for bathing or textile work. The precise relationship between the burnt mound at Dromavane and that fulacht fia is not fully established, but their closeness suggests the two features may represent related episodes of activity on the same slope, perhaps by the same community over time.

Burnt mounds of this kind rarely attract much attention in the landscape; they are low, unassuming features, easily mistaken for natural undulations in pasture. What makes the Dromavane example worth noting is less its physical presence than the accident of discovery, the fact that infrastructure construction, which so often destroys archaeology without record, here prompted excavation and at least partial documentation before the evidence was lost.