Located near Atwater in Merced County, California, Castle AFB was established in 1941 as Merced Army Air Field before being renamed in 1949 to honor Brigadier General Frederick W. Castle, a Medal of Honor recipient killed in World War II. As one of Strategic Air Command's principal bomber and aerial refueling bases, the installation hosted aircraft ranging from the B-29 Superfortress and B-36 Peacemaker through the B-52 Stratofortress, KC-135 Stratotanker, and KC-10 Extender before closing under the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure program. Supporting that mission for more than 50 years meant maintenance hangars, engine repair shops, fuel storage facilities, dormitories, hospitals, and administrative buildings, most of it built between the 1940s and 1970s.
Protecting a bomber and refueling fleet meant Castle AFB kept a permanent Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting mission running throughout its operational life. Air Force environmental restoration records document multiple Fire Training Areas on base, used for live-fire exercises involving aviation fuels and aircraft rescue scenarios that included fuel burn pits and dedicated fire training pads as part of routine readiness work.
Firefighters assigned to these sites followed the same pattern across their careers:
- mixed foam concentrate before each training exercise
- operated hoses against live aviation fuel fires
- extinguished simulated crashes as part of ARFF certification drills
- cleaned firefighting vehicles and protective gear after every session
- maintained foam storage tanks and delivery systems between exercises
Air Force Fire Protection Specialists and ARFF personnel carried most of this exposure, alongside fire instructors, firefighter trainees, civilian firefighters assigned to the base, and the staff responsible for keeping vehicles and foam systems operational.
PFAS chemicals found in legacy AFFF have been linked to kidney cancer and testicular cancer in firefighters with this kind of repeated occupational exposure. If you trained or served as a firefighter at Castle AFB and were later diagnosed with one of these cancers, that history is worth having reviewed.
Castle AFB spent more than 50 years supporting Strategic Air Command's bomber and refueling missions, and the infrastructure built to sustain that mission - hangars, boiler plants, hospitals, dormitories - went up during the exact decades when asbestos was considered a standard building material rather than a hazard. Anyone doing hands-on repair work in those buildings after that risk became known would have routinely come across:
- steam line lagging
- transite ceiling and wall panels
- floor tile mastic
- window and door glazing compound
- boiler coating
- electrical panel backing
- furnace cement
- valves
The trades doing that repair work most often were:
- flight-line mechanic
- power plant operator
- insulation installer
- steamfitter
- roofer
- drywall and flooring crew
- base facilities electrician
- demolition contractor
Two diseases account for nearly all of the serious health consequences tied to this kind of exposure: mesothelioma, which forms in the lining around the lungs, and lung cancer, which develops in the lungs themselves. What makes both particularly hard to catch early is timing, decades can pass between the exposure and the first symptom, sometimes as long as 50 years, so a veteran who worked maintenance at Castle AFB in the 1960s might only be dealing with this now. If that's your situation, our team can review your service record and let you know if you're eligible to file an asbestos claim.