Believed by scholar Lisa Stone to be the last painting that Brown worked on before his life was claimed by AIDS-related complications in 1997, Burned Hills has a grim sense of poetry. Brown's interest in apocalyptic landscapes was consistent throughout his career, as was his interest in current events in the world around him, but only in a few paintings was he able to unite the two. Stone commented that she felt the painting was an apt, if morose, final project for Brown in his illness, depicting firefighters valiantly fighting a losing battle against a tireless wildfire ravaging nature.