Smoke Chases Family Out Of Idaho Town They’ll Flee Grass-Burning Season To Keep Daughter Out Of Hospital

After suffering through the last grass-burning season from a hospital bed, 4-year-old Alexandria Heisel and her family are leaving town for 45 days.

Her family can’t afford the departure, but they don’t want to endure another marathon of pain.

“The cost of Alex’s medical bills for the 1994 and 1995 grass-burning season exceeded $30,000,” said Trina Heisel. The grass smoke causes her lungs to scar, so “the lung damage is permanent.”

Alex Heisel has cystic fibrosis, a respiratory disease aggravated by the smoke and particulates that boil off of area bluegrass seed fields when they are seared every August and September, according to her doctor, Michael McCarthy.

She functions relatively well most of the year, with daily medication.

“But you burn the fields, and boom, she’s in the hospital,” said her father, Jim Heisel. Alex needs to be hospitalized only when the grass fields are burning.

Last year, Alex’s problems attracted public attention because she spent 17 days of the burning season in Deaconess Medical Center, fighting for breath. “She was well enough to go home by the 12th or 13th day, but the doctor wouldn’t let her go home until they were done burning,” Jim Heisel said. The fear was “she would end up back in the hospital in worse shape.”

The Heisel family isn’t going to be able to leave Post Falls until Monday. They may not quite escape the smoke, because Idaho Division of Environmental Quality officials say burning could begin as early as today.

Growers have registered 2,000 acres for burning today. Traditionally about 10,000 acres on the Rathdrum Prairie and another 12,000 to 14,000 acres in Benewah County are burned each year.

The fields are torched after the grass seed is removed to rid them of straw and clear and clear the way for next year’s plants. The fields are burned for 14 days over a 45-day period each August and September.

In Washington, grass burning will be reduced on a third of the acreage this year. It’s part of Washington Department of Ecology Director Mary Riveland’s plan to ban field burning by 1998.

“We must protect the people who quietly suffer each year when the grass fields are burned and smoke inundates their cities and towns.”

Riveland acted after being petitioned by more than 300 Spokane-area physicians.

When the topic of field burning comes up, Alex’s eyes fill with tears. “She says: ‘Am I going to have to go get poked again?”’ Trina Heisel said, referring to the IVs and other needle-driven treatments that come with the hospital stay.

The family lives paycheck-to-paycheck and hasn’t figured out how it will afford the studio cabin on Priest Lake for the next month and a half. Trina Heisel is having to leave her job as a Tidyman’s checker for those 45 days and that will make it more difficult.

She convinced her boss to let her go, with a note from Alex’s doctor. Meanwhile, the Heisels rely on medical insurance and help from a private foundation to cover Alex’s medical bills.

Heisel is frustrated because she calls daily to find out if field burning is about to begin, and no one seems to know. Even when someone has an answer, it may not be right.

Because the burning depends upon wind and weather, it’s almost impossible to predict when fields will be torched, said Linda Clovis, of the Intermountain Grass Growers Association. Better notification would be fine but “we can’t determine the course of the weather,” she said.

Grass seed farmers don’t relish the annual fires. “Number one, none of them want the hassle,” Clovis said. “The farmers all have empathy for anyone who has cystic fibrosis or emphysema, but cystic fibrosis isn’t caused by grass burning.”

Clovis said the grass seed fields are imperative to protect the aquifer, keep the soil from eroding, and provide other benefits. It’s better than housing developments and malls, Clovis said.

To the mother of a 4-year-old , that’s not an unthinkable trade-off.

An explosion of housing developments is scary, “but at some point, my child’s life is more important,” Heisel said. “If putting up houses means the smoke is going to end, then fine.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo