Thirty-four states in the U.S. have passed legislation recognizing that firefighters face an elevated risk for some types of cancers and offering varying levels of death benefits to surviving family, with a few even providing for disability payments to affected members who become too ill to continue working.
Known as “presumptive cancer legislation,” these laws create a presumption that certain cancers believed to be caused by hazards firefighters face on the job are indeed the cause, relieving those firefighters of the burden of proving to their respective states that their cancer is fire service connected, and placing that burden on the states to prove that there is no connection.