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A tank-car specialist emergency response training course recently became the first to be certified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency at the Transportation Technology Center Inc.’s (TTCI) Security and Emergency Response Training Center (SERTC) in Pueblo, Colo., according to TTCI.

The course covers the fundamentals and skills associated with emergency responses to railroad tank-car incidents involving hazardous materials and/or weapons of mass destruction. SERTC now is enrolling emergency responders for haz-mat training through a federally-funded program that provides broad access to courses at TTCI.

“With the ongoing potential of haz-mat incidents, this long awaited milestone for SERTC will assist in making response training more readily available to the emergency response community,” said SERTC General Manager Mike Cook in a prepared statement.

Meanwhile, Cook recently was appointed by Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter to serve on the Division of Fire Safety's advisory board. The seven‐member board establishes a haz-mat responder voluntary certification program and sets minimum standards for responder training.