A small patch of Arcata’s Lanphere Dunes, one of the North Coast’s most restricted nature preserves, caught fire today, sending firefighting crews scrambling over dunes and through the scrub to reach the flames.

As chronicled on the Outpost’s “Scanner Traffic Indicates,” a Coast Guard helicopter passing noticed a column of smoke rising from a vegetated area at the dunes at about 10:20 a.m. Multiple Arcata Fire units responded, one of them finally noticing the smoke from nearby Jackson Ranch Road. Some time passed before anyone was able to get to the fire, as it was off-road and even off-trail.

Eventually Calfire ordered a helicopter and to ground crews to the scene. The crews carried their gear through heavy brush to get at the fire. As of an hour ago, one crew was still there, mopping up. In the end, the fire burned just under an acre, according to Calfire Battalion Chief Laura Coleman.

Ken Griggs, a deputy manager of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge, went out to the scene today. He told the Outpost earlier today that the area that burned was of mixed vegetation — salal, Sitka spruce, some larger pines — and had a lot of downed material. He said firefighters on scene had not been immediately able to determine the fire’s cause — there was no evidence of an obvious ignition site, such as a campfire.

Griggs said that the fire isn’t expected to do much damage to the delicate, pristine dune ecosystem that the refuge carefully cultivates at Lanphere. He said that biologists would monitor the newly cleared area in the future to ensure that invasive species don’t take the opportunity to gain a foothold in the dunes. It’s a bit of a new experience — one biologist told Griggs that she could not remember a fire at Lanphere in the 30 years she’s been there — but it’s not expected to bring major changes, either to the dune ecosystem itself or the way humans manage it.

“All in all, this wasn’t a catastrophic event, by any means,” Griggs said.

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UPDATE/CLARIFICATION FOR US OLD-TIMERS:  Andrea Pickart, biologist at Lanphere, writes:

Just for the record, the site is no longer called the “Lanphere-Christensen Dunes Preserve,” it is the Lanphere Dunes Unit of HBNWR. There’s still confusion about that so it’s nice to get the name correct in the media.