im in the navy as a hospital corpsman right now but i was born and raised in tucson, AZ for 18 years... i was a cadet on the tucson fire department, and i went to EMT-B school at PIMA community college in tucson...
most cities in AZ are operated by the fire dept.. in tucson, when a call goes out a ALS fire ambo and a engine go out to the medical call... the paramedics assess the PT and decide if the PT requires a ALS unit or if they need to call for BLS, if so they will call southwest ambo (in tucson) and they will come and pick the PT up and take them to the Hosp. its a little different in phoenix and the surrounding cities, but for the most part the fire dept. ambos are staffed with full time FF/paramedics... but there are always opportunities for BLS jobs in the rural areas...
the big ones are rural/metro, southwest, and PMT...
as for school, in phoenix you have mesa community college, glendale community college, and in tucson you have PIMA... i know for a fact that PIMA is credited by the EMS organization or something like that.
it really depends on which city you are planning to move to... phoenix is a nice city, but is growing very fast and is very big...
tucson is growing as well but not as fast...
i miss AZ sooo much!!! one thing you can count on is blue skies and plenty of sunshine... the smell of the rain when it hits the hot asphalt is amazing!!! haha and dont listen to anybody who says its hot in AZ, its not, its dry so it aint bad at all... i would like those people to live here in okinawa, japan!!! this place is HOT!!! i hate it!