Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base is a combined installation in Montgomery, Alabama, made up of Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Annex. Maxwell traces its aviation history back to the Wright Brothers' civilian flying school in 1910, while Gunter Field was established in 1940–1941 as a pilot training installation. Today the base is home to Air University, the 42nd Air Base Wing, and numerous Air Force education and support organizations, and decades of aircraft operations, fire protection service, and World War II-era construction have made both AFFF and asbestos exposure relevant concerns here.
Fire protection personnel have supported aircraft, fuel storage, and flight operations at Maxwell-Gunter for decades, and like other Air Force installations, its firefighters trained with AFFF because it was the standard method for suppressing aviation fuel and petroleum fires. Training exercises included live-fire drills, aircraft emergency response training, aircraft rescue drills, fuel fire simulations, foam application exercises, and fire suppression equipment training. Beginning in the 1970s, legacy AFFF containing PFOS and PFOA became the Air Force's standard firefighting foam for Class B fuel fires.
Firefighters came into contact with this foam by mixing concentrate, operating hoses during live-fire drills, extinguishing simulated fuel fires, testing proportioning systems, cleaning firefighting vehicles, servicing foam storage systems, and taking part in repeated emergency response exercises, exposure that often meant direct skin contact and inhalation of aerosolized foam.
The following roles at Maxwell-Gunter carried the highest likelihood of AFFF exposure:
- Air Force Fire Protection Specialist
- Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting technician
- fire instructor
- firefighter trainee
- civilian firefighter assigned to the installation
- personnel responsible for maintaining firefighting equipment and foam systems
Research has linked PFAS chemicals in legacy AFFF to kidney cancer and testicular cancer among firefighters with repeated occupational exposure. If you trained or worked as a firefighter at Maxwell-Gunter and were later diagnosed with one of these cancers, you may have grounds for a claim.
Many of Maxwell's historic facilities date to the 1920s through the 1940s, a period when asbestos was standard in military construction for its fire resistance and durability. A federal historic building survey of Building 690, originally Hangar 8, specifically documents asbestos siding among its construction materials, alongside gypsum board and plaster, illustrating how deeply asbestos was built into the base's early infrastructure. Materials used at the base include:
- block insulation
- boiler coating
- castables
- ceiling tiles
- cement siding
- wallboard
- duct insulation
- gaskets
- furnace cement
- joint compound
Maintenance, renovation, and demolition work in these older buildings has always carried the risk of disturbing asbestos-containing materials and releasing fibers into the air, which puts certain trades at higher risk than others:
- civil engineer
- aircraft mechanic
- electrician
- fireman
- HVAC mechanic
- welder
- carpenter
- civilian contractor
Mesothelioma and lung cancer are the two diseases most closely linked to asbestos exposure, with mesothelioma forming in the lining around the lungs, abdomen, heart, or testes, and lung cancer developing directly in lung tissue. Both often take 20 to 50 years to appear, so many veterans who worked in Maxwell-Gunter's older buildings won't connect a diagnosis to their service until decades later. If you developed lung cancer or mesothelioma following asbestos exposure at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, our team can help you determine eligibility.