Postville bouncing back after Agri Star fire

POSTVILLE — Less than two months after a fire devastated much of the Agri Star kosher meat plant in Postville, the city appears to be bouncing back.

The fire started at 4 a.m. Tuesday, July 28, in the plant’s laundry room. A three-day effort — involving an estimated 3.5 million to 4 million gallons of water and more than 20 northeastern Iowa fire departments — managed to save about a quarter of the main building.

Yet Postville Mayor Dennis Koenig said Agri Star has been rehiring workers, and 400 of the roughly 600 who lost their jobs as a result of the fire have returned to work.

“Agri has totally busted their behind on trying to get things up and running,” Koenig said. “They are killing chickens. They are killing cattle. For them to put that together in that timeline is just amazing.”

Agri Star is the largest employer in Postville, a northeast Iowa community of around 2,500 people.

The state fire marshal ruled the cause of the fire was accidental.

Repeated calls by The Gazette to Agri Star officials to determine the company’s plans for the plant were not returned. But Agri Star said in an Aug. 16 Facebook post that it was “thrilled to begin welcoming some of our team members back to the plant. … Thank you for standing with us. Together, we are rebuilding — and we look forward to sharing more progress in the weeks ahead.”

The company also noted “tremendous effort has gone into cleaning, repairing and preparing our facility for the next chapter,” and it expressed gratitude to “our devoted team members, customers, community members, neighboring communities, vendors, contractors, and everyone who has worked alongside us and supported us throughout this difficult time.”

Jobless benefits

Jennifer Pfister works at the Casey’s across the street from the Agri Star plant. The building’s gutted visage still affects her, she said, bringing back memories from her year of working there.

Pfister’s son, who works in the plant’s shipping department, left his shift at 2 a.m. July 28, two hours before the fire was discovered. He filed for unemployment and was out of work for a month before being rehired, she said.

The state sent its Mobile Workforce Center to the city to help workers sign up for unemployment. The mobile unit and the IowaWorks center in Decorah assisted 168 workers in the aftermath, Iowa Workforce Development stated in a statement emailed to The Gazette.

“IowaWorks will continue providing assistance to any part of the impacted workforce,” the statement read. “Due to the restart of production, we anticipate that assistance will continue to be more targeted, rather than the large-scale efforts that took place in the summer.”

Nonprofits, donations

Some of the suddenly out-of-work Agri Star workers also obtained help with their bills, with Catholic Charities providing rental support and the Northeast Iowa Community Action Corp. providing help with utility bills.

More than $55,000 was donated to the 2026 Postville Fire Community Support Fund set up by the Greater Dubuque and Allamakee County community foundations. The foundations provided $25,000 to the Northeast Iowa Community Action Corp., and a committee is planning how to use the rest of the money.

“Rather than distributing all of the funds immediately, we want to be thoughtful about both the short- and longer-term needs that may arise as families continue navigating the effects of the fire and employment disruption,” the Community Foundation of Great Dubuque said in a statement.

Crystal Duffy was one of the volunteers who worked with the northeast Iowa nonprofits distributing disaster relief. She said her greatest concern when the fire began was that the plant’s workers would leave the city, but doesn’t appear to have become a major issue.

“There are a few apartments for rent, but they were for rent before,” Duffy said. “There’s a couple of houses for sale, but they were for sale before, or someone moved unrelated to (the fire).”

She said she and her volunteer network were bracing for whatever happens when unemployment benefits run out because still was unclear whether the plant would be rebuilt and would recall all of its former workers.

‘It’s Iowa nice’

Mayor Koenig said school enrollment hadn’t changed much either, another sign the city’s population was not significantly reduced.

Business in the city was a bit quieter following the fire, John’s Hardware Center employee Jessica Martinez said. And though cars are no longer lined up down the block for Jalapeno’s Mexican Cuisine, the restaurant still is open, she said. Also, she said, Agri Star is purchasing supplies from John’s.

Although Martinez said she knows some people moved away after the fire to find new jobs, she mentioned that one woman who came into the store told her she liked working at Agri Star so much she found temporary employment an hour away. She’s sticking around, hoping she’ll be rehired.

Julie Heitland, a volunteer at the Postville Food Pantry, said the pantry was seeing 80 to 100 families week before the fire. After the fire, the number of families picking up food peaked at 140. It’s back down to around 100 families now.

Heitland said food donations to the pantry increased from surrounding communities after the fire, allowing the pantry to offer high-demand items like ketchup and jarred spaghetti sauce that it typically doesn’t have. Gardeners also brought in produce, and one person donated a truckload of sweet corn.

“It’s Iowa nice, and we help our neighbors,” she said. “That’s just what we do.”

What’s next?

Mayor Koenig said the city’s relationship with Agri Star had improved significantly in the wake of the fire. Before the fire, his office didn’t interact much with local plant management, Koenig said. Now, he said, he has a standing appointment every Thursday with plant management.

Heitland, at the food pantry, said she’d lived in Postville for 32 years. In that time, she’s seen four big business fires and the devastating immigration raid in 2008. Each time, Heitland said, she’d hear people say Postville was done for. But each time, the city persevered.

“Every time something goes down, this community comes together and supports one another all the way through,” Heitland said. “It’s not for a day or two. We just keep supporting as long as we need to.”