A young couple and their two small children were killed Thursday night in a house fire, in the southeast Kansas town of Independence.

Fire officials said a natural gas line connected to a heating stove in the rental home had a hole in it.

The victims were 22-year-old Derek Crain, his 20-year-old wife, Lacy, and their children, three-year-old Damien and 10-month old Jade.

The family was upstairs when the fire began below them in the two-story frame home. Fire officials say the have not determined if the family was aware of the fire before it spread so rapidly.

The father and the children were dead at the scene. Lacy Crain died a short time later at an Independence hospital.