Located about 35 miles northwest of Boston across Ayer, Harvard, Lancaster, and Shirley, Massachusetts, the installation began in 1917 as Camp Devens, a temporary World War I training camp, before becoming a permanent Army post in 1931 and being redesignated Fort Devens in honor of Major General Charles Devens. During World War II alone, it processed more than 600,000 service members while also functioning as a mobilization center, prisoner-of-war camp, and hospital complex, and it continued supporting training, logistics, and intelligence operations through the Cold War, Korean War, Vietnam War, and Operation Desert Storm. That long history required Moore Army Airfield, aircraft maintenance facilities, fire stations, steam plants, and hospitals, much of it built between the 1930s and 1970s.
AFFF exposure at Fort Devens
The Army's 2017 PFAS Preliminary Assessment for Fort Devens is unusually candid about what investigators could and couldn't confirm. Interviews with former fire chiefs indicated the main runway at Moore Army Airfield may have been foamed during firefighting and crash training, but because training foam was frequently used in place of AFFF due to cost, neither former chief could say how often the real thing was actually deployed versus the cheaper substitute. What the report does confirm is that AFFF continued to be stored by the Devens Fire Department even after the airfield closed.
That mix of training foam and AFFF still meant firefighters handled the genuine chemical on a regular basis, through:
- aircraft crash rescue exercises
- airfield emergency response drills
- fuel fire suppression training
- fire suppression equipment testing
- firefighter certification exercises
Exposure came from mixing foam concentrate, applying foam during live training, testing proportioning systems, cleaning firefighting vehicles and gear, and maintaining the foam storage tanks the department kept on hand even after flight operations ended.
Army Fire Protection Specialists and Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting personnel were most exposed, along with fire instructors, firefighter trainees, civilian firefighters assigned to Fort Devens, and the staff who maintained firefighting vehicles and foam storage systems.
Kidney cancer and testicular cancer have been linked to PFAS chemicals found in AFFF among firefighters with this kind of occupational exposure. If you served with the Fort Devens fire department or trained at Moore Army Airfield and were later diagnosed with one of these cancers, our team can help you find out whether you're eligible to file.
Asbestos exposure at Fort Devens
Like most Army installations built during the mid-20th century, Fort Devens relied heavily on asbestos-containing materials for their fire resistance, durability, and insulating properties. Materials commonly used throughout its barracks, hospitals, and utility buildings included:
The trades most likely to have disturbed these materials while maintaining Fort Devens's buildings and airfield facilities include:
Fort Devens operated for nearly 80 years, spanning the World War I, World War II, Cold War, and Vietnam eras when these materials were routinely built into military infrastructure, and EPA records document the installation's historical management and disposal of asbestos-containing construction debris. A diagnosis of mesothelioma or lung cancer, the two conditions most strongly tied to asbestos exposure, often doesn't surface until 20 to 50 years after the original exposure, meaning someone who worked at Fort Devens decades ago may only now be learning of the connection. If your service included maintenance work at Fort Devens and you've since received one of these diagnoses, contact our team to find out whether you're eligible to file a claim.