Located in Brunswick, Maine, about 25 miles northeast of Portland, the Navy commissioned the installation on April 15, 1943, after acquiring a municipal airfield originally built in the mid-1930s. Following a brief post-war caretaker period, Brunswick Naval Air Station was recommissioned in 1951 and became home to P-2 Neptune and later P-3 Orion patrol squadrons conducting surveillance and submarine detection across the North Atlantic, until the base closed under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process, officially ending operations in 2011. Decades of aircraft maintenance and patrol operations required hangars, engine overhaul shops, fuel storage facilities, and steam and utility systems, much of it built between the 1940s and 1970s.
Navy investigations at Brunswick Naval Air Station identified three separate historical fire training areas:
- Site 11, the primary Fire Training Area, used regularly from the 1950s until the fall of 1990
- the West Fire Training Area
- a training site north of Hangar 6
AFFF was phased into use at the base sometime between the late 1970s and early 1980s and remained part of live-fire training until Site 11 closed in 1990, giving Brunswick Naval Air Station’s firefighters roughly a decade of documented, direct contact with the foam during regular training.
Beyond scheduled training, Navy records also document a series of accidental AFFF releases tied to routine base operations:
- discharges from the fire suppression systems in Hangars 4, 5, and 6
- leaks from fire department vehicles
- releases at the Foam House
- spills during fire vehicle maintenance and routine equipment upkeep
Taken together, these records show that firefighters at Brunswick Naval Air Station came into contact with AFFF well beyond the training area itself, through hangar systems, storage facilities, and maintenance work spread across the base.
Navy firefighters and Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting personnel carried the bulk of this exposure, joined by fire instructors, firefighter trainees, civilian firefighters assigned to Brunswick Naval Air Station, and the personnel responsible for maintaining firefighting vehicles and foam systems.
Kidney cancer and testicular cancer have all been linked to PFAS chemicals found in AFFF among firefighters with this kind of sustained occupational exposure. If you trained at Site 11, worked around the Hangar 4, 5, or 6 suppression systems, or otherwise handled AFFF at Brunswick Naval Air Station and were later diagnosed with one of these cancers, our team can help you find out whether you're eligible to file a claim.
Brunswick Naval Air Station was built and expanded during the decades when asbestos was considered standard for its heat resistance, insulating properties, and durability. Materials commonly used throughout its hangars, engine overhaul shops, and barracks included:
- pipe insulation
- boilers
- ceiling tiles
- wallboard
- gaskets
- floor tiles
- cement siding
- wiring insulation
- furnace cement
Occupational exposure at Brunswick Naval Air Station was especially likely among:
- aviation ordnanceman
- electrician's mate
- utilitiesman
- watertender
- machinist's mate
- structural mechanic
- welder
Brunswick Naval Air Station operated for nearly 70 years, and much of its infrastructure dates to the World War II and Cold War eras when these materials were routinely used throughout Navy installations. Official environmental records document asbestos management and disposal activities at the base, reflecting the historical presence of these materials across its facilities. Diagnosis often comes long after the fact with asbestos exposure.
Mesothelioma and lung cancer, the two conditions tied most closely to this kind of work, can take anywhere from two to five decades to develop, so personnel who handled insulation or repaired boilers at Brunswick Naval Air Station in the 1960s might not see any symptoms until well into retirement. That gap between exposure and diagnosis is exactly why we recommend anyone who did maintenance work at Brunswick Naval Air Station and later developed either condition talk to our team about whether they qualify to file an asbestos claim.