FREDERICKTOWN, Mo. - A meeting in Fredericktown got heated when Critical Mineral Recovery announced plans to rebuild. 

Resident Kimi Royer showed up to what was meant to be a private meeting, she said.

"We live off of our grass and our air and our water,” Royer said. 

People packed the room to hear about Critical Mineral Recovery's (CMR) plans to rebuild after a massive fire last month. 

"This is a huge farming community, not just with cattle. We are cattle farmers. But crops, that should all be taken into consideration. Plus, they put this thing half a mile from our school," she said. 

On Oct. 30, CMR was destroyed, forcing surrounding homes to evacuate as the EPA monitored air quality. 

The EPA did find incident-related contaminants but said concentrations were "below threshold levels." After two weeks on site, the EPA left town last week. 

On Wednesday, attorney Al Watkins addressed people's concerns on behalf of CMR. He says CMR wants to rebuild, but the question is where. 

"The goal is to start in very short order the rebuilding process. You can't rebuild where the fire was until where the fire was is remediated. We don't know if we want to wait that long," he said. 

He also released new information about the fire. 

"That fire went from a small, containable location on one end of a 225,000-foot processing center, and in 89 seconds, it was engulfed," Watkins said. 

He said the facility’s state-of-the-art fire suppression system failed. FOX 2 reached out to the maker of that system but did not hear back. 

Watkins says when CMR rebuilds, it will be bigger and safer. 

"They can say what they want in here today, but the people of Madison County need to get together, and we need to make a decision whether or not we're going to allow this," Royer said. 

CMR also committed to paying its employees at least through Nov. 29.