Were you a firefighter who also worked at the Nevada Test Site?
Your Test Site employment may open a separate federal occupational-benefit pathway — including possible claim compensation and medical benefits — even if you already have firefighter retirement, health or workers’ compensation benefits. Firefighter, military, law enforcement, the trades or another career entirely: if you also worked out at the Nevada Test Site, that second job is the one this page is about.
The fire service is not what does it. The Test Site work is.
A career in the fire service does not, on its own, open the federal programme this page is about. EEOICPA covers people who worked for the Department of Energy, for its contractors, and for their subcontractors. A city or county fire department is not one of those employers, and no amount of years on the job changes that.
The other job is what opens it. A great many Nevada firefighters also worked out at the Test Site — before they got on a department, on days off, on a crew that went out for a season, or after a pension came through. That employment is the basis for a federal claim, and it is the one thing almost nobody thinks to mention, because it was never the career.
So the question this page asks is narrow and it is answerable: not what you did for a living, but whether you were ever out there, and who was on the paycheck when you were.
The Department of Labor decides every claim. Alara assesses the patient, coordinates the physician documentation and the home-health authorization, and provides the authorized care. It does not file claims and nothing here is a determination of eligibility.
Three things, in this order.
None of these is a decision, and none of them is a form. They are the three facts a nurse needs before anything else is worth discussing.
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1. You worked at the Nevada Test Site.
The Nevada Test Site, now the Nevada National Security Site, is a covered Department of Energy facility for work from 1951 on. The Tonopah Test Range is covered as well. Area 51 is treated by the Department of Labor as part of the Nevada Test Site for the period 1958 through 1999.
Any job, any length of time, any company. A single season out there is employment; how much it counts for is a separate question and not one you have to answer yourself.
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2. Somebody was on that paycheck.
This is the covered-employer question, and it is where most people rule themselves out by mistake. You did not have to work for the Department of Energy. Its contractors and subcontractors are covered the same way, and most of the people who worked at the Nevada Test Site were never federal employees. They worked for REECo, for EG&G, for Wackenhut, for a paving company or a bus line or a drilling outfit out of Las Vegas.
The Department of Labor publishes its own list of companies with a known contractual relationship to the site — REECo, Bechtel Nevada, NSTec, MSTS, EG&G and several hundred others, down to the paving crews and the bus lines. That list is a starting point and DOL says it may not include every subcontractor.
A company we cannot match is not a rejection and never will be. Tell a nurse the name you remember, even half of it.
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3. A doctor has diagnosed something.
Part B covers radiogenic cancer, chronic beryllium disease, beryllium sensitivity and chronic silicosis. Part E is the broader pathway for Department of Energy contractor and subcontractor employees, where exposure to a toxic substance at the facility caused, contributed to or aggravated the illness — and a toxic substance there is not limited to radiation. It includes chemicals, solvents, acids and metals.
A firefighter arrives with a diagnosis far more often than the rest of this audience does, which is exactly why the employment question is the one that has gone unasked.
Contractor employment plus a Part B disease means both parts are worth checking, not one. Some contractor and subcontractor workers can have a claim evaluated under Part B and under Part E. They are separate determinations with separate requirements, and the Department of Labor makes each of them.
Search all 472 companies on the DOL list → Which conditions are covered →
Firefighter, military, law enforcement, the trades — the question is the same.
The shape repeats. One career that is not covered by this programme, and one stretch of Test Site work that may be. What differs is where each one should be sent, so they are set out separately rather than swept together.
RECA and onsite participants → If the service is the question → Site security work → Support and services →
For two long stretches, the radiation dose does not have to be reconstructed.
The Special Exposure Cohort is a designation, not an award. Inside one of its classes, a worker with one of the 22 specified cancers can be compensated under Part B without a NIOSH dose reconstruction — the step that otherwise asks a programme to estimate, decades later, what a particular body absorbed.
The Nevada Test Site has two classes, and between them they cover forty-two years.
Nevada Test Site work between 1951 and 1992, plus 250 qualifying days, plus a specified cancer — that combination is a reason to check the Special Exposure Cohort. It is not a determination. The Department of Labor decides membership and every claim that follows from it.
Worked after 1992? Do not stop reading.
The Special Exposure Cohort classes end in 1992. The facility’s coverage does not. The Nevada Test Site remains a covered Department of Energy facility after 1992, and it is one today under the name Nevada National Security Site.
A claim from 1998, or 2004, or last decade is still a claim. What ends in 1992 is one shortcut through the radiation-dose question — not the programme, and not the medical benefit that an accepted claim opens. Nobody should be screened out of this because their years fall on the wrong side of a Special Exposure Cohort date.
Bechtel Nevada, 1996 to 2006 → NSTec, 2006 to 2017 → MSTS, 2017 to today →
Two parts, and this page does not add them together.
An accepted claim can pay compensation and it opens a medical benefit for the accepted condition. What follows is what the programme provides when a claim is accepted — not a prediction about any particular claim, and not a total anybody should be counting on.
No amount on this page is promised to anyone. These are the programme’s figures, not a forecast. Whether a claim is accepted, under which part, and for how much, is decided by the Department of Labor on the record of that claim.
That doesn’t mean you should ignore your Test Site employment.
Nevada’s firefighter occupational-disease presumptions and workers’ compensation are a state system. EEOICPA is a federal one, run by the Department of Labor for people who worked at Department of Energy facilities. They ask different questions, about different employers, and an award in one is not an application in the other.
A worker with both employment histories should disclose both — to the department, and to the Department of Labor. Neither system is served by the other one being left out.
The Department of Labor decides every claim. Alara assesses the patient, coordinates the physician documentation and the home-health authorization, and provides the authorized care. It does not file claims and nothing here is a determination of eligibility.
An accepted condition comes with medical benefits, and those can reach the house.
The White Card is the medical benefit that comes with an accepted claim. It pays for care that is medically necessary to treat the accepted condition — which can include skilled nursing and home health aide services at home, when a treating physician documents the need and the Department of Labor authorizes it.
Where you are now decides what happens next, so the three positions are set out separately.
What the White Card covers → Changing home-health provider → The Las Vegas Resource Center →
A short check, and a nurse reads the answers.
Where the work was, who paid you, roughly when, and what a doctor has said since — plus the two questions this page exists for: whether you were in the fire service, and whether a workers’ compensation claim is already running. That is enough for a nurse to say whether there is something here worth opening, and if there is not, to say that instead.
Nothing here is a determination of eligibility, nobody takes a percentage of anything, and claim help through the Department of Labor’s Resource Center is free.
Check a Test Site work history → Start a case review → Or call (702) 814-9630 →
What people ask first.
Does being a firefighter qualify me for EEOICPA?
No. The fire service on its own does not create eligibility. EEOICPA covers Department of Energy employees, DOE contractor and subcontractor employees, atomic weapons employer employees and certain uranium workers. What can create eligibility is separate employment at a covered facility such as the Nevada Test Site, and that is the employment worth checking.
I worked at the Test Site for a contractor, not the government. Does that still count?
Contractor and subcontractor employees at a covered facility are covered the same as federal employees, and the job title does not decide it. Most people who worked at the Nevada Test Site were contractor employees — for REECo, EG&G, Wackenhut, Bechtel Nevada, NSTec, MSTS or one of several hundred subcontractors the Department of Labor publishes.
I already have a Nevada firefighter workers’ compensation claim. Does that cancel a federal claim?
No. State workers’ compensation and EEOICPA are different systems. Part E monetary compensation is coordinated with state workers’ compensation benefits received for the same covered illness, so Part E can be reduced; medical benefits and vocational rehabilitation benefits are excluded from that coordination, and Part B compensation is not coordinated with state workers’ compensation at all. An existing claim is a fact to disclose, not a disqualification.
I worked out there after 1992. Am I too late?
No. The Special Exposure Cohort classes for the Nevada Test Site end in 1992, but the site remains a covered Department of Energy facility after that and is one today as the Nevada National Security Site. What the Special Exposure Cohort provides is a route around dose reconstruction for those years, not the programme itself.
Does work at Area 51 count as the Nevada Test Site?
The Department of Labor states that Area 51 is considered to be part of the Nevada Test Site for the period 1958 through 1999. Employment there in those years is treated as employment at the covered facility, and the usual questions about employer, dates and illness still apply.
What are the 250 work days about?
They are a requirement of the two Nevada Test Site Special Exposure Cohort classes. The days are aggregate rather than consecutive, so separate stints add up, and they may be combined with days worked under another Special Exposure Cohort class. Work outside those classes is not governed by the 250-day rule.
I was in the military at the Test Site, not a civilian employee.
That is a different programme. Uniformed personnel present at an atmospheric nuclear test are covered as onsite participants under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, and the VA administers its own radiation-related benefits. If you also held a civilian job at the site — for a contractor or subcontractor, at any point — that employment is the EEOICPA question and is worth raising separately.
I am a retired firefighter and the Test Site work was decades ago. Is it too late?
No. Nothing closes on old employment at the Nevada Test Site — claims are filed on work from the 1960s and 1970s. What gets harder with time is documenting it, which is the argument for establishing the record while a retired firefighter still has the union hall, the department file and the people who were out there with him. Old paperwork writes the site as NTS and anything recent writes it as NNSS; both are the same covered facility.
What does Alara get out of this?
Alara is a Nevada-licensed, nurse-owned home health agency that provides the care an accepted White Card pays for. It does not file claims and takes no percentage of any award. Claim help through the Department of Labor’s Resource Center is free.
A nurse reads it, not a form.
The check takes a few minutes and needs no records, no claim number and no appointment. Nothing here is a determination of eligibility, and the Department of Labor decides every claim.
Every company on the DOL list → Start from the beginning → What the White Card covers →