Located in Aurora, Colorado, the installation began as Buckley Field before passing through the Colorado Air National Guard, Buckley Air National Guard Base, and Buckley Air Force Base before becoming Buckley Space Force Base in 2021 with the establishment of the U.S. Space Force. Today it's home to Space Base Delta 2, supporting missile warning, space surveillance, intelligence, and cyber operations alongside its continuing National Guard mission. That range of missions required aircraft maintenance facilities, flight lines, fuel storage areas, industrial shops, and fire stations, much of it built between the 1940s and 1970s.
Most bases with documented AFFF use have one or two named training sites. Buckley AFB has five: Fire Training Area No. 2 ran jet fuel fire drills from roughly 1950 to 1972, Fire Training Area No. 3 picked up annual live-fire exercises from 1972 to 1989, Hangar 801 saw an accidental release of thousands of gallons of AFFF solution, a former fire station handled routine truck loading and washdown, and multiple historical aircraft crash sites round out the list, all identified through official Department of the Air Force investigations.
That density of documented sites matters because it means firefighters at Buckley AFB weren't limited to one training ground, they moved between locations depending on the era and the mission, which likely increased how often any individual firefighter came into contact with foam over a career. The work itself looked the same wherever it happened: concentrate mixed and loaded, hoses charged against a live burn, gear scrubbed down afterward, tanks and delivery lines serviced before the next crew arrived.
Fire Protection Specialists and ARFF crew members handled this most directly, but instructors running drills, trainees earning certification, civilian firefighters on staff, and technicians maintaining the trucks and foam systems were pulled into it too.
Kidney cancer and testicular cancer are the four conditions tied to PFAS exposure in firefighters with this kind of history. Anyone who trained or worked at Buckley AFB's fire training areas, Hangar 801, or its former fire station and later received one of these diagnoses should have that connection reviewed.
Buckley AFB's construction timeline runs from the early 1940s straight through the Cold War, and its buildings show it: hangars, shops, and utility plants built during that stretch commonly relied on:
- pipe lagging
- boiler insulation
- acoustic ceiling tile
- floor tile adhesive
- fireproof wall panels
- roofing shingles
- window glazing putty
- electrical panel backing
- gasket cord
The trades that spent the most time inside these buildings, and therefore faced the most exposure, included aircraft maintenance technicians working in the hangars, civil engineers overseeing repairs, electricians and plumbers handling utility work, pipefitters and boiler technicians servicing mechanical systems, HVAC technicians, welders, and the civilian contractors brought in for larger renovation projects.
What separates Buckley AFB from a typical base of this era is how many missions have passed through it, bombardier training, National Guard operations, Air Force flight support, and now Space Force missions, each one adding new construction and disturbing old materials in the process. Mesothelioma and lung cancer are the two illnesses tied to that history, both known to take 20 to 50 years before symptoms appear. If your work at Buckley Air Force Base preceded a diagnosis of either condition, our team can review your case to see if you qualify to file an asbestos claim.