The governor has signed a bill that updates the Connecticut Firefighters Cancer Relief Program.

The updates include streamlining claims so that firefighters get benefits quicker, extending benefits to state firefighters working at UConn and Bradley Airport, and adding skin cancer to the list of covered conditions.

According to research conducted by the CDC, firefighters are 1.39 times more likely to develop skin cancer.

“Skin cancer was the last major system that was not covered under the original bill,” Peter Brown, president of the Uniformed Professional Firefighters of Connecticut, said. “So everything else, across the board is, is fully covered.”

Marisabel Barbagallo has been a firefighter in Hartford for seven years. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last January.

“I felt really just caught off guard because I just felt like I was still young,” she said.

Barbagallo was out of work for 10 months. She had three surgeries and chemotherapy. The relief program offering wage replacement benefits was established in 2023, so Barbagallo said finding treatment was not hard, but accessing the benefits was a challenge.

Now advocates are pushing the legislature to pass a bill that provides a funding stream for the Firefighter Cancer Relief Fund.

The fund has about $8 million in it now, but Brown expects more claims to come in so they want to be prepared.

“That’s always the biggest fear we have,” Brown said. “We have over 30 claims. We don’t want to see that fund go insolvent.”

Firefighters are also working to get cancer screenings covered. Just this month, the state began providing cancer screenings to firefighters enrolled in the state employee health plan.