That bumper crop of flowers and grasses from all that rain are going to turn from beautiful to deadly this coming wildfire season.

Arizona voters will get to decide next year whether the state should levy a new $20 fine on each criminal conviction in order to pay an extra $250,000 to the families of police officers, firefighters, EMTs and corrections officers killed on the job because of a criminal act.

On a 7-4 vote Friday the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure approved a measure which limits the messages on freeways and other major roads in the state to those "directly related to transportation or highway public safety.''

Voters said “no” to a plan that would have added one-tenth of a penny to the state sales tax to benefit rural fire districts, but firefighters warn that the need – and the threat to public safety – have not gone away.

“Cancer has silently overtaken the fire service as the number one issue,” Buckeye Fire Chief Jake Rhoades said. “Here in the state of Arizona, we're pushing upwards of 100 firefighters who are battling some type of cancer.

A Republican senator is prepared to withhold his crucial vote on the state’s budget unless it contains at least $160 million in ongoing funding for higher education and another $20 million for firefighters with cancer.

A bill that closes the loophole preventing firefighters from receiving workers’ compensation for getting cancer from putting out fires is now on its way to Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk.

Carter’s bill seeks to build on work the Legislature did in 2017, with a law that listed several types of cancers, heart diseases and respiratory illnesses as illnesses that could be presumed to have been caused by fighting fires.

Clumps of dark brown hair littered the Arizona Senate lawn on January 16 as Sen. Heather Carter ran an electric shaver over Sen. Paul Boyer’s head, surrounded by the cancer-stricken firefighters.

State lawmakers tried to expand protections for firefighters two years ago, but the law does not seem to be working as expected.