A person is visible on video surveillance images taken from Automatic Distributors, employee Gary Shaw said.

“They did see one person running away,” he said at about 10:10 a.m.

Shaw stepped out of the building to see Bangor’s three mobile crime units moving into the business’s parking lot.

He said he saw the store’s video images and said the woman who called in the fire also is pictured.

“We saw her pull in and pull back,” Shaw said.

Police took a copy of the surveillance camera video, the employee said.

The Bangor Police Department received the report just before 4 a.m. Monday, according to Bangor police Sgt. Paul Edwards.

Someone driving by noticed the car fire and called 911 at about 3:35 a.m., he said. Police were notified at about 3:55 a.m., after firefighters made their grisly discovery.

“Bangor firefighters arrived and extinguished the car and soon thereafter found three people inside,” Edwards said.

Radio announcer Kat Walls said she dialed 911 shortly after 3:30 a.m. after she saw the flames while on her way to work. She kept her distance because of loud crackling.

“It was fully engulfed when I saw it. There was lots of popping and small booms,” Walls said. “It was hard to tell it was a car at times because it was so engulfed.”

The blaze was hot enough to burst the car’s windows and pop its tires, leaving the charred remains of a sedan with its hood up, witnesses said.

Walls said that it never occurred to her that people had died and that she learned about the bodies when a detective arrived during her morning show at 97.1 the Bear.

“It was horrifying — the idea that I sat there and waited for the fire department while people were burning inside. I’m struggling with it, actually. It feels horrible,” she said.

No details were given about the people inside, including their genders and approximate ages.

“I have no identifications yet,” Edwards said at about 10:45 a.m. “It could take awhile.”

The sergeant added that the identifications are “probably going to rely on DNA, [and] that’s very difficult.”

Stratham Tire manager Jeff Gordon was called into work by police, who wanted to look at the business’s video surveillance images.

“You just see the lights [from vehicles] going in, two or three sets, and then the blaze,” Gordon said.

The types of vehicles and the license plates are not distinguishable in the images taken from across the street, he said.

“They were going past and one went in and another went in and then you see the blaze,” Gordon said. “The next thing you see is the fire department arriving.”

The cameras run 24 hours a day, he said.

Edwards said about noon that one of the car’s license plates “burned off and fell on the ground” and is not from Maine.

Maine State Police Trooper Josh D’Angelo and his dog, K-9 Junior, were on the scene Monday morning scouring the area for clues. Five officers and detectives could be seen at around 7:30 a.m. taking pictures of the burned car, with the bodies still inside.

“Basically, it’s evidence collection at this point,” Edwards said. He said it was too early to say whether the people inside the car died in the fire that engulfed the vehicle in flames.

Dr. Ed David of the state medical examiner’s office arrived at about 7:40 a.m. and was reviewing the scene along with Bangor police detectives and evidence technicians and fire investigators from the state fire marshal’s office.

Three Maine Department of Environmental Protection officials arrived at 10:30 a.m. to put up a tent, one driver said, for evidence protection.

Police said they want to talk to anyone who was in the area between 3 and 3:30 a.m.

Bangor’s Criminal Investigations Division and the state fire marshal’s office are investigating.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.