As you first saw on the Eagle Grove Eagle website and Facebook pages last week, the Eagle Grove Fire Department was called to Lewright Meats on the 100 block of North Iowa Avenue at 9:23 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Sept. 22. Lewright Meats locker has been a staple of the Eagle Grove community since 1936. Wednesday morning, the original smokehouse started a fire that left the locker area severely damaged. Black smoke could be seen billowing from the building as the Eagle Grove Fire Department, the Goldfield Fire Department, the Eagle Grove Police, and the Wright County Sheriff’s Office rushed to the scene.
According to owner Ethan Bubeck, they had just turned the primary brick smokehouse off after cooking bacon. It was cooling down, so he is confused as to how it started.
“We’re not really sure,” he said.
But according to what he was told by the fire investigator, the smokehouse is indeed where the fire started. The slaughter room and both the primary and the secondary smokehouses are a complete loss, as is the freezer area, coolers, and the processing area. Half of the ready-to-eat area is lost, and there are holes in the roof. On a good note, the office area was not damaged and the computers and some of the equipment was not affected.
“It’s very sad…11 tons of beef carcasses were lost,” said Bubeck. “It’s emotionally hard on all of us because we are all tied to this job and it is incredibly discouraging to see all the hard work thrown away.”
Bubeck is grateful to still have some meat available for consumer sale in his store, but isn’t sure how long it will last as they have no way of currently processing any more meat. That means when those freezers (where the restaurant area used to be) are empty, all the meat is gone and won’t be restocked for an indefinite amount of time.
He is also grateful that none of the Lewright employees, to whom he refers to as a family, are all safe.
“We are physically safe, but emotionally struggling,” he added. “I am so proud of each one of them. They are doing everything they can to help. I couldn’t ask for a better group.”
In the aftermath, and while walking through the damage, Bubeck said he is just stunned at the way the fire damaged some things and not others. For example, it melted a light fixture right off the wall, but directly behind it was a paper order ticket that doesn’t even have singe marks. It's perfectly fine. In a place where the ceiling and top wall was completely burned, a cardboard box sitting right by it was untouched. The top half of the wall was fried, but the paper towels sitting right below it were just fine. Quarter-inch steel was twisted. The smoker doors got so hot they warped. But, most of the processing equipment is also still intact and salvageable.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Bubeck.
The question everyone’s been asking Bubeck is how soon will they be back to work? He has no answer to that, other than they have every intention of rebuilding or rehabilitating the building.
“I appreciate all of the good work the firefighters did…and I would like to thank (Captain Michael) Stuckey (of the Eagle Grove Police Department, and the EMS crew. I appreciate them putting their lives at risk to help us.”
In an average month, Lewright Meats was processing 60 head of cattle and 80 – 90 head of pork. They have 10 full-time employees as well as some part-time employees as part of their work family.
“We as a family and as a company are committed to this community,” Bubeck concluded, looking ahead to the future of Lewright Meats and its place in Eagle Grove.
