Chicago police officers work at the scene of a double fatal car crash in the 5300 block of DuSable Lake Shore Drive on Dec. 12, 2021. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

       Two men, including a 24-year-old, died Sunday afternoon after the vehicle they were in went careening off Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive “at a high rate of speed” and crashed into a tree where it caught fire, Chicago police said.

       Officers were called to the 5300 block of North DuSable Lake Shore Drive, north of the intersection with Foster Avenue in the Edgewater Beach area, around 12:45 p.m., according to Officer Anthony Spicuzza, a spokesman for Chicago police.

       Authorities said there had been two men in the fast-moving vehicle when it left the roadway and struck a tree, causing the vehicle to ignite and go up in flames. Smoke from the blaze was visible from a distance, according to onlookers. Police did not provide an estimate of how fast the vehicle had been moving before it left the roadway.

       The scene of a fatal car crash in the 5300 block of DuSable Lake Shore Drive is shown on Dec. 12, 2021. Two men died when the vehicle left the roadway and struck a tree (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

       A 24-year-old man was taken to Saint Francis Health Center and a second man, whose age was not known, was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

       “Both victims were pronounced,” Spicuzza said in an email.

       The men had not been identified by the Cook County medical examiner’s office as of Sunday afternoon and a spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for more information, including the second man’s age.

       When asked for the make, model, color or year of the vehicle, Spicuzza said that information was not immediately available. He said the fatal crash involved the single vehicle that crashed into a “fixed object” — the tree — but no other vehicles.

       It wasn’t clear which of the two men had been driving.

       Investigators with the department’s major accidents team were looking into the cause of the fatal crash, Spicuzza said.

       kdouglas@chicagotribune.com

       Twitter @312BreakingNews

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