BRISTOL — A brush fire tore through the woods and marshland between Narragansett Bay and the East Bay Bike Path yesterday, sending plumes of black smoke and fire into the sky and damaging a boardwalk owned by the Audubon Society of Rhode Island.

It appeared the fire started somewhere opposite Hanley Farm Road, in Warren, around 4 p.m. and spread south in minutes, burning across land near the Audubon’s education center in Bristol and the sprawling North Farm residential development. Smoke was visible from across the Bay in the Apponaug section of Warwick and nearby Barrington, drawing spectators to the waterfront area .

Bristol fire and police personnel blocked off a half-mile section of the bike path as firefighters battled flames engulfing trees and scrub brush along the shoreline.

Kristen Swanberg, the Audubon’s education director, said phragmites, an invasive marsh plant that grows in the area, produce thick smoke when they burn.

She and other Audubon employees, including Anne DiMonti, director of the Bristol center, were at the boardwalk yesterday afternoon inspecting the damage caused by the flames as the fire continued to burn in other spots nearby. They said the boardwalk, which winds through a salt marsh, will have to be replaced.

“This is a tragedy,” said Swanberg. “It will have to be rebuilt.”

Parts of a log fence along the bike path were also badly burned. The residences at North Farm and Hanley Farm Road sit on the other side of the bike path.

With the fire still burning after nightfall, firefighters were forced to tear up sections of the boardwalk to get at flames crawling their way toward the Audubon center, homes and businesses in the area.

The fire was extinguished soon after 8 p.m., according to a Bristol police dispatcher.

No homes or buildings were damaged by the fire.

akuffner@projo.com