Prosecutors say Sharaz Ali was 'motivated by jealousy and fuelled by drink and drugs' when he set fire to Bryonie Gawith's home, killing the family-of-four in the early hours of August 21 last year.
Ali is accused of going to the house to 'take revenge' on his former partner, Bryonie's sister Antonia Gawith, who was staying there after ending their 'abusive' seven-year relationship earlier that month.
Antonia's video interview with police was shown to jurors at Doncaster Crown Court, which showed her sobbing as she described the 'catastrophic' house fire.
She spoke of the moment she tried to get help for her sister, nieces and nephew as the house became engulfed in flames while they were trapped inside.
After finishing her shift at Tesco, Antonia said she had been in Bryonie's bedroom when Ali messaged her and accused her of being with another man.
Antonia said her sister told her to ignore him and started to fall asleep.
'I never thought he'd come and do that. Why would he do that?' she told officers.
She said she heard the house's ring doorbell bleep and started walking downstairs.
'I started walking downstairs and the door was kicked through and Sharaz and another man were stood there, but the man that kicked the door ran straight off,' she told police.
'(Ali) started pouring petrol on me. I was saying "please don't, I love you, I'll come back, don't do this".'
She told police: 'I was begging, I would say anything just so he wouldn't do it.'
She said Ali seemed 'angry' and was shouting, but that she could not remember anything he had said, adding: 'He just seemed so different ... he just didn't seem himself at all, it was just crazy.'
Antonia described trying to get the petrol and a lighter out of Ali's hands before running out of the house, thinking he would follow her.
'I was screaming for help but he didn't follow me. I ran back to the house and as I ran back my sister's kicked him down the stairs and then I tried to get him out.
'I pulled the petrol off him and tried to get him out, and then he hit the lighter.
'I seen him set on fire, and all the stairs, and my sister.'
Antonia said the front door then swung shut, and when she managed to open it there was 'fire everywhere'.
'I was scared to go in because I thought I would just burn,' she said.
Antonia told police she ran round to the back door but it was jammed, and she started kicking it while 'screaming and shouting' for her sister to get out.
She said Bryonie, who had rung 999 while coming down the stairs, threw her phone out of the window.
She told officers she picked it up and started 'shouting down the phone telling them to send everybody - the police, ambulance, fire brigade'.
'I was just screaming, trying to get back in the house and I couldn't get in. I couldn't save them,' she said tearfully.
Antonia told officers that police arrived and broke through the door, pulling Ali out, but that by the time the fire brigade arrived, it was too late to save Bryonie and the children.
She described trying to get upstairs but being kept away as she was still covered in petrol.
'They said it wasn't safe. I was just begging them all and screaming and crying, and I just wanted to save them and I just couldn't. I couldn't do anything.
'They wouldn't let me go up - I just wanted to be with her. I was covered in petrol, so they were trying to keep me back.'
Bryonie, 29, and her children Denisty Birtle, nine, Oscar Birtle, five, and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle, died in the blaze.
Ali, 40, of no fixed address, and Calum Sunderland, 26, of Calton Street, Keighley, are charged with murdering Bryonie and the three children, and attempting to murder Antonia.
Mohammed Shabir, 45, who had been due to go on trial with them, died of a heart attack last month after collapsing in prison.
Prosecutors say Shabir drove to and from the house while Sunderland kicked the door in.
Ali and Sunderland deny the charges.
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