Established in 1939 as Ladd Field, Fort Wainwright is a major Army installation near Fairbanks, Alaska. During World War II, the post served as a hub for aircraft ferry operations to the Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program, and today it's home to the 11th Airborne Division, supporting year-round Arctic military training. Decades of airfield operations, maintenance work, and fire station activity across a base with many World War II and Cold War-era buildings have made both AFFF and asbestos exposure relevant to those who served there.
Fort Wainwright maintains an active Fire and Emergency Services Division across multiple fire stations, providing aircraft rescue, structural firefighting, and emergency response for the installation. Army environmental investigations identify several specific training locations on base, including the Fire Station #2 Training Area, a training site near Building 2420, and the historic Fire Training Pits, all documented as locations where AFFF was used during firefighter exercises. Training here involved live-fire drills, aircraft rescue exercises, fuel fire simulations, emergency response drills, foam application training, and fire suppression equipment training.
Firefighters at these sites handled AFFF while mixing foam concentrate, operating hoses during live-fire drills, extinguishing simulated aircraft and fuel fires, testing proportioning systems, cleaning firefighting vehicles and equipment, servicing foam storage systems, and repeating aircraft emergency response drills as part of ongoing readiness training.
Roles at Fort Wainwright with the greatest likelihood of AFFF exposure include:
- Army Fire Protection Specialist
- Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting technician
- fire instructor
- firefighter trainee
- civilian firefighter assigned to Fort Wainwright
- personnel who maintained firefighting vehicles and foam systems
Because firefighters routinely completed hands-on training, some personnel repeatedly handled AFFF over the course of many years. Research has linked PFAS chemicals in legacy AFFF to kidney cancer and testicular cancer among firefighters with this kind of repeated exposure. If you trained or served as a firefighter at Fort Wainwright and were later diagnosed with one of these cancers, you may be entitled to compensation.
Like many installations built during the 1940s and expanded throughout the Cold War, Fort Wainwright used asbestos for its fire resistance, insulation, and durability in Alaska's harsh climate. Materials commonly found in the base's older buildings included:
- pipe insulation
- boiler insulation
- steam distribution system insulation
- roofing materials
- vinyl floor tile
- ceiling tile
- fire-resistant wallboard
- mechanical equipment insulation
- gasket
- packing material
Occupations most likely to have disturbed these materials during maintenance, repair, or renovation work included:
- Army engineer
- pipefitter
- boiler technician
- HVAC mechanic
- electrician
- welder
- building maintenance worker
- civilian contractor
Fort Wainwright has operated continuously since the late 1930s, and its many legacy buildings were constructed well before asbestos restrictions took hold, making occupational exposure most relevant for those who maintained or renovated these older structures. Mesothelioma and lung cancer are the two conditions most closely connected to this kind of exposure, with mesothelioma forming in the lining around the lungs, abdomen, heart, or testes, and lung cancer developing directly in lung tissue, both often taking 20 to 50 years to surface after asbestos fibers are inhaled. If you developed lung cancer or mesothelioma following asbestos exposure at Fort Wainwright, our team can help you determine if you are eligible to file a claim.