Arizona Financial Credit Union Awards $12,500 Grant to Arizona State Fire Training Committee

Contributed Photo: Arizona Financial Credit Union recently awarded a generous $12,500 grant to the Arizona State Fire Training Committee (ASFTC) to support advanced firefighter training and preparedness initiatives through the annual Arizona Fire School.

Grant to support annual Arizona Fire School for life-saving training for rural area firefighters

Phoenix — In support of Arizona’s fire professionals, Arizona Financial Credit Union recently awarded a generous $12,500 grant to the Arizona State Fire Training Committee (ASFTC) to support advanced firefighter training and preparedness initiatives through the annual Arizona Fire School. This funding arrives at a critical time as the nation witnesses the devastating impact of the California fires, underscoring the urgency of robust fire response capabilities.

Contributed Photo: Firefighters train at the firefighting school.

Now entering its 52nd year, this grant will bolster ASFTC’s mission to provide comprehensive, state-of-the-art training for firefighters and first responders throughout the state, focusing on underserved rural departments. Overall skills training, fire prevention and investigation techniques, and fire leadership are the main focus of the school curriculum. Courses include but are not limited to confined space rescue, vehicle stabilization and patient extrication, fire and life safety education, emergency vehicle driving, live fire training, and basic firefighter survival, to name just a few.

“This funding comes at a time where the importance of training is of high visibility as our California counterparts battle these unprecedented fires,” said Dan Bramble, Chairperson of the Arizona State Fire Training Committee. “The knowledge and skills imparted through our training programs save lives, and this grant helps ensure that Arizona’s firefighters get the training they need to remain at the forefront of fire response and community protection. We are deeply grateful to Arizona Financial Credit Union for recognizing the importance of this mission.”

Contributed Photo: Firefighting training is taught to rural-area firefighters across the state.

The ripple effects of this grant will extend beyond Arizona. By fostering a stronger, more capable firefighting workforce, the state’s responders can assist in interstate emergencies, creating a regional network of support and expertise crucial to combating wildfires on a larger scale.

The grant gifted to ASFTC came through Arizona Financial’s Local Causes Visa debit card program, which provides funding to hyper-local nonprofits with operating budgets under $ 2 million. Grants were gifted to 15 other nonprofits at a ceremony in December. The grant money will go directly to support scholarships for underserved departments across Arizona. Since 2012, Arizona Fire School has gifted more than $1 million in scholarships to more than 3,500 firefighters to attend the Arizona State Fire School offered every September for the last 51 years.

“Supporting firefighters and first responders has always been a priority of ours as we work closely with groups like the 100 Club and others,” says Rachel Galvez, Executive Director of Arizona Financial Foundation. “Their mission to provide rural area firefighters the training they need and deserve to keep their communities, and themselves, safe resonated with us, and we are so thankful to the committee for their dedication to Arizona’s fire professionals.”

For more information about the Arizona State Fire Training Committee, please visit azfiretraining.org/fireschool.

Contributed Photo: Firefighters train on extraction technique.

About the Arizona State Fire Training Committee

Since 1972, the Arizona State Fire Training Committee has been training rural, volunteer, and career firefighters with continuing education drills and skills to equip them with the latest techniques in firefighting. Each year, Arizona Fire School conducts 30-35 different classes at over 10 locations throughout the Valley, educating nearly 1,000 firefighters and fire prevention professionals annually. Many of those individuals are on scholarships thanks to funding from the Arizona Firefighters Fund. The community needs to get involved to help send more rural and volunteer firefighters to get the training they need to protect people and structures in rural Arizona. For more information, please visit azfiretraining.org/fire-school/.


About Arizona Financial Credit Union

Arizona Financial is a $3.3 billion not-for-profit financial cooperative providing consumer and small business banking services and expertise to more than 170,000 members/owners. Founded in 1936, the credit union has been ranked #1 in Arizona on the Forbes list of Best-In-State Credit Unions for 2024. Arizona Financial empowers its members to take hold of their financial future through the delivery of leading-edge self-service tools and mobile apps, competitive rates on loans and deposits, robust home loan solutions, identity protection services, and SBA and commercial loans. Arizona Financial has a history of local community involvement and is the sponsor of the Live Nation Theatre venue and exclusive credit union partner of the Phoenix Rising FC. The credit union has 20 locations across metro Phoenix and western Arizona and is part of the CO-OP network that provides members nationwide account access at 5,000 credit union branches and 30,000 ATMs. Deposits are federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration. For more information, visit ArizonaFinancial.org.