Explosion Ignites Fire at World's Largest Quaker Oats Mill in Iowa

An explosion at the Quaker Oats plant in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa, started a fire Saturday afternoon that pushed thick black smoke over the city. Nobody was hurt.

The Cedar Rapids Fire Department took a call at 4:44 p.m. for a fire on the back side of the facility, the side that faces away from Interstate 380. Crews arriving at the plant found signs of an explosion as they worked to put out the flames.

The fire was considered under control by 6:15 p.m. Firefighters stayed inside after that, hunting hot spots. At 6:25 p.m. the department said limited operations were still going on for final efforts and overhaul inside the building.

All plant workers were accounted for. No firefighters were injured. The cause of the fire and the explosion is under investigation.

A 4:44 p.m. call and heavy smoke on the north side

When the first engines pulled up just before 5 p.m., crews found heavy smoke and flames coming from the north side of the building. Video and photos posted to social media showed the smoke column standing over the downtown of a city of about 140,000 people.

Crews found what appears to be evidence of an explosion and subsequent fire, the department said on Facebook. It was not a small operation to get on top of it. In a release posted that evening, the department wrote that "firefighting operations were successful in extinguishing most of the fire," with crews still inside the structure afterward.

Overhaul, the part of the job that comes after the visible flames are gone, is the slow work of pulling apart what burned and soaking anything still hot. That was what was happening at 6:25 p.m., roughly an hour and 40 minutes after the first call came in.

The mayor said the blast hit a part of the plant where few people work

Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O'Donnell went to the scene and gave updates to residents through Facebook video while crews were still working. She said the explosion happened in a section of the plant where product moves back and forth rather than a section staffed with people.

"This happened in an area of the plant that's kind of in the back," O'Donnell said. She added that "fortunately we didn't have people where this reported explosion took place."

She also described the area as one that is "not heavily populated with employees and team members. Which of course in this case was a blessing."

Her summary of the day was short. "The headline here, though, no injuries, thank God," O'Donnell said. "No injuries, all accounted for." She also praised the crews who responded, saying the call was the kind of emergency those crews train for.

PepsiCo says the cause will be investigated

PepsiCo Foods US, which owns the plant, put out a short statement Saturday. "This evening a fire started at the Quaker facility in Cedar Rapids. Details of how the fire started will be investigated. We can confirm all employees are accounted for and we are grateful to the first responders who continue to operate at the facility."

The company did not say how much of the plant was damaged, how many people were working at the time, or when production might resume. Authorities have not said what caused the explosion or put a dollar figure on the damage either.

Two million pounds of oats a day

The Cedar Rapids facility is not a regional plant that happens to carry a famous name. The company bills it as the largest milling facility in the world, processing more than 2 million pounds of oats a day, which works out to about 900,000 kilograms.

Employment at the site runs between 740 and 1,000 people. That makes it one of the heavier industrial payrolls in a metro area where the mill is also a piece of the skyline, sitting downtown and visible to anyone driving the interstate through town.

The Quaker Oats brand, by way of the Quaker Mill Company, turns 150 years old in 2027. The company has been owned by PepsiCo since 2001, and the Cedar Rapids operation is the one the corporation points to when it talks about scale.

Crews came from Marion, Hiawatha and Linn County

Cedar Rapids firefighters called for help almost immediately. Additional crews came in from Marion, Hiawatha and Linn County, along with area ambulance services and local police.

Both hospitals in the city brought in support in case patients started arriving. None did. That standby was the only medical piece of the whole incident, since no worker and no firefighter was hurt at the scene.

Traffic took the hit instead. The emergency response backed up Interstate 380 for more than an hour on a Saturday evening, with drivers slowing to look at the smoke as they came through downtown.

What people downtown saw

Residents reported hearing and feeling the explosion before the black smoke appeared behind the plant. One of them was Dan Gardner, who described the feeling as "terror, sadness, worry" when he saw the column rising.

"Explosions are bad, fires are bad. Quaker Oats is a staple of this town so, we don't want them to blow up," Gardner said.

A man from Texas, Emilio Esquivel, said he looked out a window and could not make sense of what he was looking at. "I saw a bunch of smoke, it was like a movie scene," Esquivel told KCRG. "Seeing something like that was just like eye opening. It was eyebrow raising. It was crazy."

Photos and video circulating online appeared to show significant damage to the section of the facility where the fire started. Officials have not given a damage assessment.

Grassley posted about it while crews were still working

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa posted about the fire on social media Saturday. "I've just been alerted to the fire in Cedar Rapids at Quaker Oats I'm praying for the safety of those in or near the building and for the first responders on the scene," Grassley wrote on X.

The post went up while the outcome was still unclear to people watching from outside. The fire department said all plant workers were accounted for as of 5:30 p.m., less than an hour after the first call.

What investigators have not answered yet

Three things were still open Saturday night. What set off the explosion. How much of the plant was damaged. And how many workers were inside the building when it happened, a number officials have not given.

The fire department's account is that firefighters arrived and found what appeared to be evidence of an explosion followed by fire, not the other way around. Authorities reported no injuries and no fatalities.

Fire officials have said only that the cause is under investigation.

What the city got out of Saturday was a loud afternoon, a stalled interstate, two hospitals on standby for nothing, and everyone inside the plant out without a scratch. The mayor called that the headline. It is hard to argue with her.