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“Obviously this is a frightening incident, and not the type of service that we want to provide to our customers,” Poftak said. “I want to offer my apology to the folks who were on that train, who had to experience that.”

At the time of the fire, there were around 200 passengers on board the train, Poftak said.

Jennifer Thomson-Sullivan, 42, said she was one of the passengers on the car that caught on fire and saw flames leaping up on both sides of the train.

“For a minute it was coming up on both sides,” she said. “That’s when everyone started freaking out. In my brain at that moment, I thought, ‘oh my God.’ People rushed to the back of the car where I was sitting. There was a gentleman frantically trying to open the emergency exit. But the door would not open.”

When he couldn’t get the door open, the man got up on the seats and kicked out a window, she said.

“From that point on, people started throwing themselves out the window,” she said. “They didn’t stop to consider the third rail or what if another train was coming in the other direction. . . People just went for it.”

One passenger jumped off the bridge into the Mystic River between the cities of Somerville and Medford after exiting the train.

“An unidentified female passenger jumped off the bridge into the river,” said Somerville Fire Chief Charles Breen in a phone interview. “Our marine boat happened to be in the river for training and was on scene immediately. The woman refused to get into the boat. She was provided a life jacket and proceeded to swim to shore . . . then she walked away.”

Radio transmissions posted to Broadcastify.com indicated that T personnel who responded to the train and who were working to remove passengers watched as the woman jumped into the water.

“201 to Control. I can see Medford Fire at the station. We’re almost done evacuating the train. We also have fire crews at Assembly,” the T supervisor reported.

She paused briefly.

“I have somebody jumping off the bridge into the water, actually, as we speak,’’ she said. “201 to Control. [They’re jumping] off the bridge into the water below.”

This is not the first time an Orange Line panel has come loose, causing smoke and a frantic evacuation. In 2016, Orange Line riders at State Street station kicked out train car windows to escape after a panel came loose and in contact with the third rail. In response, the T began physically inspecting the panels, instead of doing simple visual checks, the Globe reported at the time.

Poftak said the train involved in Thursday’s fire, train 1251, was put into service in January 1980 and had last been inspected on June 23. During that inspection, the panel was checked, Poftak said. Cars are inspected every two to three moths.

William Tauro, a former candidate for Somerville mayor, who lives on Assembly Row near the bridge, said he looked out the window to see the train stopped with smoke billowing out.

”I was looking out and was like, ‘What the hell is going on out there?’” said Tauro, 62. “I’m looking out there and looking back to the TV and I’m seeing the same shot there that I’m seeing out the window.”

Louis Bacon, 72, said he was working on his boat on the Mystic when he spotted a helicopter circling the area. Though he didn’t initially see flames, Bacon said he wasn’t surprised to hear about the blaze.

“You don’t ever want to see it, but it’s on the news — there’s always something on the T going wrong,” Bacon said.

“No injuries were reported,” Pesaturo said, adding that shuttle buses were in place Thursday morning between the Oak Grove and Community College stops, and that power on the affected train had earlier been turned off between the Wellington and Assembly stations.

Breen said once the power was shut off, the fire apparently went out on its own.

The damaged train was brought to the Wellington rail yard for an investigation, according to Pesaturo.

“The MBTA Track and Power Departments are at the incident location inspecting infrastructure,” Pesaturo said. “The MBTA has notified the FTA and the NTSB of the incident.”

The MBTA is still waiting on the delivery of hundreds of new Orange and Red Line train cars from a Chinese company first contracted in 2014. They are supposed to replace the old cars like the one involved in Thursday’s fire, which caps a horrific year for MBTA passengers who have had to endure a seemingly endless series of safety incidents on the transit system.

Two lawmakers who presided over a State House hearing Monday on T safety released a joint statement on the Orange Line fire, calling it a stark illustration of the safety threats posed to the public.

“The images of this morning’s Orange Line fire and the on-track evacuation of passengers are dramatic illustrations of the public safety threats posed by the current state of affairs at the MBTA and further evidence of the need for the oversight hearings being undertaken by the [joint] Transportation Committee,” said committee cochairs state Representative Bill Straus and state Senator Brendan Crighton.

The lawmakers added that as “we await findings from the investigations to come, it is clear that despite assurances from the Baker administration that the MBTA’s safety management program is now on a proper footing, significant improvement is still needed. Our thoughts are with those who experienced this frightening situation and we hope everyone is safe. We are in the process of scheduling additional hearings and look forward to continuing our examination in the months to come.”

Governor Charlie Baker, appearing on GBH Radio, said the fire was “unacceptable” but pushed back when host Jim Braude asked if the T was “a mess.”

Baker responded by defending the T’s on-time performance and infrastructure upgrades.

“But stuff like this makes people crazy,” Baker said. “It makes me crazy. And I completely understand why.”

The mayors of Boston and Somerville also expressed concern about MBTA safety.

“I’m sick of it that the Commonwealth has allowed the T to reach a state of disrepair that these kinds of incidents are commonplace,” said Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne, who also thanked Somerville fire officials for their response and voiced gratitude that the passengers and T employees were safe.

She said she wants to see more urgent action from the state to address the T’s woes, calling for more investment in safety measures.

“All of these accidents, issues with the T, it’s like what else needs to happen?” Ballantyne said. “We keep kicking the can down the road. It must stop.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said the fire provided more evidence of an aging transit system in crisis.

“A broken MBTA threatens the safety of our community and the future of our city and region,” Wu said in a statement. “I’ll be reaching out to my colleagues across the region to more aggressively partner with the state on rapid systemwide upgrades. The City of Boston must do more to help the state lead this transformation, and we are ready to prioritize this work.”

Tauro, the Assembly Row resident, also voiced exasperation with the state of the beleaguered transit agency.

“Whoever’s in charge of this MBTA, fix it,” Tauro said. “I wouldn’t want to be caught up there at 100 degrees on that bridge, jumping out a window on top of the Mystic River. Forget it.”

John R. Ellement of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Anjali Huynh contributed to this report.

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Taylor Dolven can be reached at taylor.dolven@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @taydolven. Emily Sweeney can be reached at emily.sweeney@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emilysweeney and on Instagram @emilysweeney22. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.