ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An Alaska wrongful death lawsuit blames a natural gas company and the owners of a mobile home for a fire that killed five young girls who had been left home alone, a report said.

Parents Jimmy Flores and Janelle Quackenbush, who rented the home, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Palmer Superior Court, The Anchorage Daily News reported Saturday.

Enstar Natural Gas, the mobile home’s owners, managers and real-estate companies contributed to the deaths in 2017 by failing to fix problems with the home in the community of Butte, the lawsuit said.

The children ranged in age from 3 to 12 and their parents are seeking more than $100,000 in damages each, among other requests.

The girls were left alone temporarily and someone accidentally turned on the stovetop instead of adjusting the oven, resulting in an overheated pan that caused the fire, the lawsuit said.

The appliance was being used to heat the home about 42 miles (68 kilometres) northeast of Anchorage after gas service had been turned off, the lawsuit said.

The defendants failed to install adequate smoke detectors or fix a furnace and fix a door that was frozen open, leading to high gas bills the couple could not pay, the lawsuit claimed.

Flores and Quackenbush repeatedly asked for detectors and other home repairs, and the failure to correct those problems made the home “uninhabitable,” the lawsuit said.

The deaths “were a direct result of a dangerous residence which was sold and rented in violation of applicable safety laws,” said attorney Phillip Weidner.

An Enstar representative and the property owner declined to comment. The former owner’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

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Information from: Anchorage Daily News, http://www.adn.com