Homewood Fire Department was honored recently by Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response (TRANSCAER) with the first Outstanding Community Safety Partnership Award in large part for the role it played in creating a training video that will help fire departments across the country prepare for rail emergencies.

At the award presentation on June 27 at the department headquarters on Dixie Highway, Erica Fischer, director of training, outreach and partnerships with TRANSCAER, thanked village officials for working with the organization.

“It really exemplifies your department’s commitment to preparedness, working alongside rail partners,” she said. “We really appreciate all you did last year to help us make a video.”

Another partner in the video production was Canadian National Railway, which has its North American headquarters and training center in Homewood. CN representative Anthony Ippolito was at the award presentation and also expressed appreciation for HFD’s work.

“We’ve always had a good working relationship with Homewood Fire Department,” Ippolito said, noting that proximity helps as the CN training center is a mile away from the HFD headquarters. He added that the training materials HFD helped create will “train not just people locally but across the nation.”

Homewood Deputy Fire Chief Steve DeJong and Mayor Rich Hofeld accepted the award.

“We’ve worked over the past several years in our collaboration with CN,” DeJong said. “The training that we’ve done is to really just enhance the public safety here in the community and throughout the South Suburbs.”

The award was established to honor fire departments that not only meet but exceed standard practices in hazardous material safety, response and community engagement, according to a news release from the village.

The Homewood Fire Department earned the award by achieving high marks across all criteria, including:

• Continuous hazardous materials training and education for its personnel.
• Exemplary performance in responding to hazardous materials incidents, including successful containment and mitigation.
• Active collaboration with local, regional and industry partners.
• Participation in TRANSCAER training, drills and video development initiatives.
• Leadership in advancing community preparedness.