The present invention is directed to systems and methods for establishing incident communications networks. In an embodiment, the system includes an incident controller, a communications resource database that stores communications resources information and a marshalling rules module that stores a set of marshalling rules. A marshalling rule identifies how to select the communications resources to be marshaled into the incident communications network based on an incident trigger. Upon receipt of an incident trigger, the incident controller is configured to establish the incident communications network by obtaining a marshalling rule based on the incident trigger. The incident controller marshals communications resources based on the marshalling rule and the communications resources determined to be available. A wide variety of information sources can be used to determine an incident trigger. Information sources can either provide an incident trigger (e.g., a hurricane warning) or provide data to be analyzed to determine an incident trigger.