AFFF Foam Exposure: Firefighter and Military Claims

By David Meldofsky, California-licensed attorney · Founder, Lawsuit Informer

Last updated: October 4, 2026

AFFF is the foam used to put out fuel fires. Airports, military bases, industrial plants and fire departments have relied on it for decades because it works on burning jet fuel and gasoline in a way water does not. For most of that time it contained PFAS, the chemicals that do not break down.

The lawsuits come from two directions. Firefighters and service members who handled the foam year after year. And people whose drinking water sat downstream of a base, an airport or a training ground where it was sprayed.

For broader context, see PFAS Water Contamination Lawsuits, PFAS Water Contamination Lawsuit Update and Toxic Water Contamination Lawsuits. Related pages cover Water Contamination Illnesses, Environmental Contamination Lawsuits and PFAS Consumer Product Lawsuits.

Two Tracks: Water Systems and Individual Injuries

Nearly all the federal cases sit together in one court as MDL 2873, in South Carolina before Judge Richard M. Gergel. Our AFFF lawsuit updates page carries the current case count and the latest rulings.

Here is the distinction that matters more than anything else on this page. There are two separate tracks, and the money you have read about belongs to only one of them.

The water track is for cities and utilities whose supplies were contaminated. Those cases produced the enormous settlements. 3M agreed to pay up to about $10.3 billion, and DuPont, Chemours and Corteva about $1.185 billion. Carrier Global added about $730 million out of the Kidde-Fenwal bankruptcy. That money pays for treating and monitoring water. None of it goes to a person with cancer.

The injury track is for individuals, and no global settlement has been announced for it. The first test trial was set for October 2025. It came off the calendar when filings surged. In mid-2025 the court held a Science Day, where both sides presented expert evidence on whether PFAS causes thyroid and liver cancer. That evidence shapes what a jury will eventually be allowed to hear.

So if you are searching for an AFFF settlement and finding headlines with billions in them, those headlines are about water systems. The individual side is still working toward its first trials.

For the broader PFAS litigation picture, see our PFAS Water Contamination Lawsuit Update and the Where Does My Lawsuit Stand? litigation status tracker.

What Is AFFF Firefighting Foam?

AFFF stands for aqueous film-forming foam. It smothers fuel fires by spreading a film across the burning liquid. That is why airports, military bases, industrial plants and fire departments have used it on gasoline and jet fuel for decades.

Many AFFF products contained PFAS. People call them forever chemicals because they do not break down in soil, in water, or in the body.

For broader PFAS-related litigation, see PFAS Water Contamination Lawsuits, Chemical Exposure Lawsuits, and Toxic Exposure Lawsuits.

Why People Research AFFF Lawsuits

The claim is that PFAS from the foam soaked into the ground at training sites, bases, airports and industrial locations, reached the water, and stayed there. And that years of contact with it, at work or through a tap, raised the risk of serious illness.

What these cases dig into is what the manufacturers knew, when they knew it, what the label said, and how the contamination spread.

To see how water claims, utility settlements and individual injury claims overlap, read our PFAS water contamination lawsuit update.

AFFF claims often overlap with Toxic Water Contamination Lawsuits, Environmental Contamination Lawsuits, Chemical Exposure Lawsuits, and Toxic Exposure Lawsuits.

Firefighter and Military Occupational Exposure

Firefighters and service members make up a large share of the individual plaintiffs. Career and volunteer firefighters describe exposure during training drills, equipment testing and real calls, often across a whole career. Military firefighters describe foam drills, crash response and hangar systems on bases where AFFF was standard for decades.

A work claim rests on different evidence than a community water claim. What your job was and when. Training records. Which foam your station or base actually used. What protective gear was worn, if any. And when the diagnosis came. Firefighter unions have pushed for broader protections, and some states now treat certain cancers as occupational illnesses for firefighters by default.

Service members face one extra wrinkle. You generally cannot sue the government over this, so military AFFF cases run against the foam manufacturers instead. Veterans who lived or worked on a base with known contamination sometimes also look at water claims.

Service-era exposure and a recent diagnosis can sit decades apart, so see PFAS Lawsuit Statute of Limitations by State. For docket movement, see AFFF Lawsuit Updates. Related reading includes PFAS in Drinking Water, Chemical Exposure and Kidney Cancer and What Evidence Helps a Lawsuit?.

Is AFFF Being Recalled or Phased Out?

There has been no recall in the ordinary sense. What is happening is a phase-out, and it is a big part of why AFFF has been in the news. A 2020 defense law ordered the Pentagon to stop buying PFAS-based foam and stop using it on bases. The deadline was October 1, 2024, with the option of two one-year extensions.

It took both, which made October 1, 2026 the final deadline the law allows. Roughly a thousand facilities and more than six thousand vehicles and aircraft had to switch to fluorine-free foam by then. We have not yet found a public Defense Department statement on whether every base finished the switch.

The military specification for the replacement was published in January 2023 and several approved products now exist. Many civilian airports and fire departments are making the same change, and a number of states have banned PFAS-based foam for training.

A phase-out is not proof that any product caused any illness. What it does mean is that the places that used the most of it are winding down. Disposing of old stock and cleaning up contaminated ground remain open problems.

Who May Be Affected

• Firefighters, career or volunteer, from training and from real calls
• Military personnel who worked around foam drills or base fire operations
• Airport crash and rescue crews
• Industrial workers at plants with foam suppression systems
• People who lived near contaminated groundwater or a treated water supply

Looking for broader diagnosis-related topics? Explore Water Contamination Illnesses, Environmental Contamination Illnesses, and Chemical Exposure Symptoms.

Health Concerns Discussed in These Cases

• Kidney cancer
• Testicular cancer
• Thyroid conditions
• Liver problems
• Effects on the immune system
• Other conditions raised in PFAS research

Which conditions a case involves depends on the kind of exposure, how long it went on, the medical history, and what the research supports. This page explains what people research. It cannot tell you what caused a particular diagnosis.

Related diagnosis pages include Cancers Linked to Lawsuits and Chemical Exposure and Kidney Cancer. Others cover Reproductive Injuries Linked to Lawsuits, Developmental Injuries Linked to Lawsuits and Water Contamination Illnesses. Diagnosis-specific pages cover kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, and ulcerative colitis.

Common Sources of Alleged Exposure

• Firefighter training drills
• Foam exercises on military bases
• Airport emergency response training
• Fire suppression systems in industrial plants
• Groundwater near a training or testing site
• Years of living near somewhere the foam was used

Readers exploring source-based exposure paths often also review PFAS Water Contamination Lawsuits, Environmental Contamination Lawsuits, and Has Anyone Been Part of a PFAS Water Contamination Lawsuit?.

Types of Claims Involved

• Failure to warn about what PFAS in the foam could do
• Defective design of the product
• Negligence in how it was made and sold
• Environmental contamination
• Water contamination and the cost of cleaning it up

Some contamination lawsuits also involve PFAS water contamination, where communities allege that long-term exposure to these chemicals may be linked to serious health risks.

Where the claim is about a job rather than a water supply, the focus shifts to work history and training. It also turns on what the job involved, what protective gear existed, and which product it was.

Why These Cases Can Be Complex

Time is the first problem. Decades can pass between spraying foam and a diagnosis, and the records that would prove what you handled rarely survive that long.

Proof of exposure is the second. A community case may turn on water testing and contamination maps. A work case turns on your own history. And more than one company made the foam, so working out whose product reached you is its own task.

If you have an injury claim, news of a multibillion-dollar settlement may not mean what it appears to. As the two-track section above explains, those settlements went to water systems. Our guide on how mass tort cases are structured and resolved explains the split in plain terms. The Where Does My Lawsuit Stand? tracker shows what phase the injury track is in now.

Learn more in our What Evidence Helps a Lawsuit? guide, along with How Lawsuits Work, What Happens After You Contact a Lawyer?, and Statute of Limitations Basics.

Common Questions About AFFF Lawsuits

What is AFFF firefighting foam?

A foam used on fuel fires. The lawsuits are about the PFAS many AFFF products contained, which do not break down and which research has tied to several illnesses.

Who usually researches these claims?

Firefighters, service members, airport and industrial workers, and people who lived near contaminated water.

How are AFFF lawsuits connected to PFAS?

PFAS is what made the foam work and what made it a problem. The cases say those chemicals got into water supplies and into the people who handled the foam.

Can AFFF claims involve both workers and nearby communities?

Yes, and they are argued differently. A worker claim is about a job. A community claim is about a water supply.

Is there an AFFF settlement for individuals?

No global settlement has been announced for individual injury claims. The billion-dollar figures in the news settled claims by public water systems and pay for water treatment. Individual cases are still in pretrial.

Has AFFF been recalled?

Not recalled, but phased out. Congress ordered the military off PFAS-based foam, and after two one-year extensions the final deadline was October 1, 2026.

How does this page relate to broader contamination claims?

AFFF cases often overlap with PFAS Water Contamination Lawsuits, Toxic Water Contamination Lawsuits, Environmental Contamination Lawsuits, and Chemical Exposure Lawsuits.

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About the Author

David Meldofsky is a California-licensed attorney and the founder of Lawsuit Informer, an educational platform focused on helping people understand lawsuits, consumer safety issues, and legal rights related to defective products and toxic exposures.

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Last Updated: October 4, 2026

Educational information only. Not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed.