Hotwash

A hotwash is the immediate "after-action" discussions and evaluations of an agency's (or multiple agencies') performance following an exercise, training session, or major event, such as Hurricane Katrina.

The main purpose of a hotwash session is to identify strengths and weaknesses of the response to a given event, which then leads to another governmental phase known as "lessons learned," which is intended to guide future response direction in order to avoid repeating errors made in the past. A hotwash normally includes all the parties that participated in the exercise or response activities. These events are used to create the After Action Review.