BATON ROUGE -- Starting September 1, active and retired Baton Rouge Fire Department responders and fire service employees will be able to receive free cancer screening services, in compliance with a new state law mandating cancer screenings for firefighters.

This comes after the East Baton Rouge Metro Council approved a contract on Wednesday evening between the City-Parish and healthcare providers, which states that the total screening costs are not to exceed $395,000 annually.

"The city's giving back to our first responders and the city's bravest, of giving them some testing to catch these things early so we can give a good life for our members throughout their career," Baton Rouge Fire Chief Michael Kimble said.

The law states that municipalities throughout the state are required to cover the costs of firefighters' cancer screenings for 11 types of cancers, including colon, lung, bladder, skin, and breast.

A key person who helped get the law passed is Baton Rouge Professional Firefighter Association President Jake Morgan. Morgan's been pushing to improve the lives of fire personnel, both during and after their career.

"So about a year and a half ago, our association got together and we created a piece of state legislation and passed it through the 2024 legislative session that basically says our employers are on the hook for providing cancer screenings for us, for the firefighters across this state. So what you see tonight is compliance with the law that was passed last year," Morgan said.

Wednesday night brought them over the finish line.

"For here on out, every year, firefighters will receive cancer screenings depending on their age. We've had three line-of-duty deaths in our fire department in recent years from occupational cancer, so this one really hits home for us," Morgan said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firefighters are nine percent more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than most people.

Morgan says that the fire department will be utilizing the GRAIL blood draw cancer screening. He adds that it can detect over 50 types of active cancer in your body by doing a simple blood draw.

"Cancer is an epidemic in the fire service nationwide; it's the number one killer of firefighters across this country," Morgan said.

In 2023, longtime Baton Rouge Fire Captain Phillip Paternostro died from cancer that many believe stemmed from his work.

"It's just an effort for us to not let him go in vain and to try and stop this cancer epidemic in the Baton Rouge Fire Department," Morgan said.

One council member who was a big supporter of the approval was Aaron Moak, with whom Morgan was having discussions while making these plans.

"Even vehicles as they catch on fire, if they get around those, you get hazmat situations that they respond to out on the streets and everything, so this is something that should have been done years ago," Moak said.