Major incidents would commonly be recognised as emergencies which require the implementation of special arrangements by any of the emergency services or other Strategic Co-ordinating Group (SCG) partners for the:
- initial treatment, rescue and transport of a large number of casualties
- direct or indirect involvement of large numbers of people
- handling of large numbers of enquiries from the public or news media
- requirement for large scale combined resources of two or more emergency services
- mobilisation and management of the emergency services and supporting organisations joint activity to protect life, reduce serious injury or prevent homelessness for a large number of people.