Established in 1917 on California's Monterey Bay and originally known as Camp Ord, the installation was renamed in 1940 to honor Major General Edward Otho Cresap Ord. Between 1947 and 1974, Fort Ord served as a primary basic training center before becoming home to the 7th Infantry Division after 1975, preparing service members for deployment worldwide until its closure in 1994. Nearly eight decades of operation left behind thousands of barracks, classrooms, motor pools, warehouses, hospitals, utility plants, and fire stations, most of it built between the 1940s and early 1970s.
The Fort Ord Fire Department protected the installation and trained its own firefighters to handle structural fires, vehicle fires, and fuel emergencies. Army and EPA records identify a Fire Drill Area established in 1962 specifically for this training, built with an unlined burn pit, a fuel storage tank, underground piping, and a discharge system that let crews ignite and extinguish fuel on demand. Roughly 90% of what burned there was JP-4 helicopter fuel, with smaller amounts of gasoline, diesel, hydraulic oil, lubricating oil, and industrial solvents rounding out the training scenarios. EPA cleanup records separately identify Site 41, the Crescent Bluff Fire Drill Area, where four additional training pits supported similar exercises before remediation after the base closed.
A firefighter cycling through this training didn't just show up once, the same steps repeated constantly:
- foam concentrate mixed before a burn
- foam applied to knock down the fire during the exercise
- equipment and vehicles cleaned once the drill ended
- foam storage tanks and delivery systems maintained for the next round
- certification exercises repeated on an ongoing basis throughout a career
Army firefighters and their trainees carried most of this exposure, but fire instructors, civilian firefighters assigned to Fort Ord, and the personnel responsible for maintaining trucks and foam systems were all part of the same routine.
Research has linked PFAS chemicals in legacy AFFF to kidney cancer and testicular cancer among firefighters with this kind of sustained exposure. If you trained or worked at the Fire Drill Area or Site 41 and were later diagnosed with one of these cancers, that history is worth having reviewed.
Extensive construction during World War II and the Cold War meant asbestos was built into Fort Ord's buildings from the ground up, valued at the time for insulation and fire protection. Thousands of barracks, hospitals, maintenance shops, and administrative buildings required constant upkeep over the installation's nearly 80 years of operation, and EPA cleanup activities after the base closed in 1994 specifically addressed hazardous building materials during redevelopment. Materials commonly used in this era included:
- pipe insulation
- boiler insulation
- steam distribution systems
- HVAC insulation
- fireproof wallboard
- roofing materials
- vinyl floor tile and adhesive
- ceiling tile
- gasket
- packing material
Trades most likely to have disturbed these materials while repairing or renovating older buildings include:
- engineer
- electrician
- pipefitter
- HVAC mechanic
- boiler technician
- welder
- construction worker
- civilian contractor
Fort Ord's decades of continuous use meant its buildings saw repair and renovation work long after asbestos was known to be a health hazard, leaving maintenance and construction crews at ongoing risk. Mesothelioma and lung cancer are the two illnesses most closely connected to that exposure, both capable of taking 20 to 50 years to appear after fibers are first inhaled. If you did maintenance or construction work at Fort Ord and have since been diagnosed with either condition, contact our team to find out whether you're eligible to file an asbestos claim.