BERKSHIRE, Vt. — A man was found dead and badly burned outside a Berkshire house on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 13, after a vehicle on the property's lawn caught fire and set the home ablaze. Vermont State Police are investigating the death.

Police have not identified the man. His body was taken to the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in Burlington, where an autopsy is expected to establish who he was and how and why he died, state police said in a news release published by Vermont Business Magazine.

Two people were in the house when the fire broke out, and neither was injured. The home was heavily damaged, according to the release and WPTZ.

According to police, the vehicle went onto the lawn of the home on Berkshire Center Road, which is also Vermont Route 118, and then started burning before the fire reached the house. Police did not say whether the man who died had been driving it or how it ended up on the lawn.

Emergency crews got the call shortly before 1:15 p.m., the release said. Firefighters from Berkshire, Enosburgh, Montgomery and Richford put the fire out, came upon the body outside the home and called in state police, WCAX reported. Troopers, detectives from the Bureau of Criminal Investigations and the state Department of Public Safety's Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit went to the scene, WPTZ reported.

Investigators are still working to determine where and how the fire began, and police said they would share more as the case develops. The highway stayed shut for roughly five hours and has since reopened, WCAX and WPTZ reported.

State police asked people who can help to call the St. Albans barracks or to leave an anonymous tip at vsp.vermont.gov/tipsubmit.

The Signal reported Friday that state police said a fire had blocked both lanes of Berkshire Center Road between Cioffoletti Road and Robitaille Road, and that police expected the closure to last two to four hours. Police had not said then what was burning or whether anyone was hurt.

Earlier coverage: Fire closes both lanes of Berkshire Center Road in Berkshire, state police say