he role of any emergency response public safety agency is to respond safely, operate efficiently, and protect the public during incident scene operations. In order to accomplish these goals they must work within an organized incident management system.

The 2002 edition of NFPA 1561 outlines a management system, and provides modular expansion capabilities to manage resources at an incident scene. It also provides for a unified command approach to incidents which may be or become multi-jurisdictional or multi-agency.