DFES officer Gavin Warnes was already in the midst of dealing with the aftermath of a dry lightning storm that hit the region late on Saturday evening – 10 fires had been called into his office over a 24-hour period – when he heard from Will Carmody.

Every seat – including the empty jury dock – was taken up as Coroner Sarah Linton listened to dozens of witnesses go through their evidence.

An inquest into the disaster ran over a five-day period at the Esperance Courthouse last week.

It took 11 days for the Cascades fire – believed to be the hottest grass fire in Australian history – to raze more than 310,000 hectares of bushland and farmland, kill thousands of livestock, destroy millions of dollars worth of crops and, most devastatingly, take the lives of four people.

His repeated requests for aerial support or extra hands were knocked back because all available resources were tied up and when he relieved his crew, he was well aware they were a day behind their plans to suppress it before the disastrous Tuesday weather hit.

When the fire rolled into Monday, the window to contain and control it was closing rapidly as Mr Carmody's team experienced machinery breakdowns, poor radio communication and no resources from DFES.

And as the Bureau of Meteorology released its spot fire forecast for Tuesday- catastrophic bushfire conditions including soaring temperatures, next-to-no humidity and howling winds - it became immediately clear to Mr Carmody firefighters had to start work quickly.

He wanted to build containment lines, conduct some backburning and directly attack it - but first, his crews had to get there.

The fire was on unallocated Crown land - meaning who was in charge of its management wasn't particularly clear - but Mr Carmody had already worked on a plan to fight it.

Mr Carmody was touching base to let Mr Warnes know his crews had managed to put out one fire in the salt lakes area, but one was proving to be a headache.

"I told [the tracking crew] 'you're going out into a dangerous area. There's going to be no rescue. If the fire gets around you, you're going to need a good awareness of what's around you. So no rescue, no extraction'," Mr Carmody said.

A tracking crew, including Mr Carmody's brother Paul and his nephew John, had been sent out early on to keep an eye on the fire and get a better picture of its size. They still didn't have aerial support, which made mapping the blaze challenging.

"There was something eerie about it. I thought, 'there’s something funny going on here, I’m missing something'."

Mr Carmody had remained hopeful conditions wouldn't be as bad as they were predicted, and by all accounts "it was a nice day", he said.

In the early hours of the November 17, tensions were high. The winds were coming, and the temperature was already reaching the high 20s.

It was an inconvenient time for the Great Southern to burn.

About 10.30am, the predicted winds came through.

"We were constantly on alert ... it was very ominous," he said.

Mr Campbell had been keeping tabs on the weather forecast and the Cascades fire, and while it was unlikely it would hit the farm, he wanted to be prepared.

It was quiet, but there was enough tension in the air that he and his workers imposed their own harvest ban.

Over in Scaddan, farmer David Campbell had made the same call to be cautious about the day's work.

"They may have had to stay the night if that was the case ... they were fully aware of what they were going into. "

In the middle of the remote bush with no escape, the 40 degrees climbed to 50, and the shields on the crew's truck were pulled down to protect them.

Paul Carmody recognised the situation his crew were in and began razing out a grass patch with a bulldozer for them to take refuge.

While Mr Carmody was trying to get this message out to his teams, the tracking crew who had been following the fire through the bushland watched helplessly as the fire jumped a 350m salt lake.

"The activity had gone ballistic," he said. "The flames were blasting the bush ... we needed to fall back into a safe point."

Mr Carmody said what happened next was something he had never seen before.

Fire hurricanes whipped into the sky, the smoke turned jet black and the howling winds sent flames 40 metres in the air.

They were marooned, and unable to communicate their location as the smoke wreaked havoc with their communication systems.

At the same time, Will Carmody tried desperately to get in touch with his brother to find out what had happened, but all he was picking up on the radio was chatter from emergency services about another fire burning hours away.

Then the news got worse.

The fire was on a major run – it had jumped containment lines, roads and any other obstacle in its way. The only option now was for firefighters to fall back.

"My family, friends, neighbours are all out there," Mr Carmody said.

"You're trying to protect the community and the next community on. You're sending friends and family out into this and putting their lives at risk.

"The fire was out of control, and uncontrollable. We had no chance.

"It's a disaster. This is ... an absolute disaster."

Many recommendations were made throughout the inquest - including those about unallocated Crown land management. Credit:DFES

'Turn around, turn around now'

Volunteer firefighter and Gibson Fire Brigade captain Blake Halford was working on another blaze when he overheard a conversation between Mr Carmody and DFES back in Esperance.

"The tone in Will’s voice painted a very bleak picture," he said.

Mr Halford said the limited information he had indicated firefighters had fallen back to Grass Patch Road – essentially, they were no longer fighting; they were running.

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He knew it needed to be all hands on deck, so Mr Halford and his Gibson Fire Brigade swapped with another crew and took off towards Scaddan.

It was so hot all three of their trucks overheated during the 25km drive, and it was about 3.45pm when his convoy turned onto Grigg Road.

"What we were seeing was unbelievable ... as soon as we turned onto Grigg Road it turned from day to night," he said.

They headed east, and had just passed Lover's Lane when the silence on the radio broke. A transmission came through:

"Turn around. Turn around now.”

“It was calm but I could hear the fear in their voice," Mr Halford said.

Firefighters had thought the fire was 20 kilometres away, but alarm bells rang when one brigade member said his passenger side door had become too hot to touch.

It had gone from pitch black to where all we could see was flames Black Halford, Gibson Fire Brigade captain

The vehicles were slowing down as they were deprived of oxygen, and when firefighters looked out their vehicle windows they could see flames licking the side of the road.

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The fire wasn't 20 kilometres away. It was 30 metres away.

Mr Halford got on the phone – Scaddan needed to be evacuated now.

The radio then went silent - they'd lost communications again.

How were they supposed to know if people in Scaddan were getting out safely? Did the magnitude of their transmission even register with those on the ground?

At the height of the blaze, hundreds of firefighters were on the ground. Credit:DFES

A monster was heading our way

At the Campbell farm, the magnitude of the situation was just beginning to hit.

When they thought the fire was 70km away from their property, Mr Campbell and Tom Butcher had gone out to the control centre to find out where the blaze was heading and what they could do to help.

It was there they met Kym 'Freddy' Curnow, a volunteer firefighter who was helping to evacuate people in the Scaddan area with his son Tom.

"We knew the fire had come out of the bush," Mr Campbell said.

"After speaking with Freddie, we thought there was absolutely nothing we could do. With what’s happening, we could feel we were in line of the potential fire.”

Mr Butcher and Mr Campbell made the decision to return to their property and start preparing everyone to defend - and with no phone signal, they were desperately trying to get the message to their family and workers while also trying to beat the fire home.

Goldfields firefighter Trevor Tasker saved hundreds of lives by stopping drivers from unwittingly heading into the Esperance firestorm. Credit:Trevor Tasker

About 3.30pm, Mr Curnow stopped by to warn them things were getting worse, and they needed to evacuate as soon as possible.

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Mr Campbell said the family and workers were planning on staying to defend, and Mr Curnow accepted their decision.

"Julia had cried a little because she was scared, but Anna had comforted her and she seemed alright," Mrs Linda Campbell, now deceased, said in a statement to police.

Ms Winther then told Mrs Campbell that she and Julia had decided to leave, and Mrs Campbell said they would need to do it quickly. Ms Winther promised to call once they got to Gibson.

Mr Butcher, Ms Kohrs-Lichte and Ms Winther left the farm, drove up the driveway and turned left.

But the Campbells said there wasn't time to think about their absence.

“A monster was heading our way," Mr Campbell said.

Grigg Road

It was an eerie feeling when the fire passed through Scaddan. It had jumped the Coolgardie-Esperance Highway, and evacuees were facing a nervous wait for news. It was still raging but the feeling of helplessness had settled in.

Local farmer and volunteer firefighter David Vandenberghe was mopping up hot spots on a property near Scaddan by himself when he received a call from a worker who let him know they had heard reports Kym Curnow’s car had been found crashed on Grigg Road.

“So I started making phone calls,” Mr Vandenberghe said.

“After ringing his son and his brother who hadn’t heard from him, I went out looking for him.”

Witnesses for DFES and the Department of Parks and Wildlife agreed they had never seen anything like it before. Credit:Trevor Tasker

Mr Vandenberghe said he began driving towards the area and decided to focus his search near the paddocks on the side of the road.

“When I’ve come up on Grigg Road, I saw it,” he said.

Mr Curnow’s car was found against a tree, and Mr Vandenberghe could only see minor damage to the front of his car.

He used the light from his phone to survey the area, and slowly, more firefighters began turning out to Grigg Road to find out what had happened – including those from the Gibson Fire Brigade Mr Halford had been co-ordinating.

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With more light from surrounding vehicles, firefighters soon realised Mr Curnow was still in the car.

"He was in the back seat,” Mr Vandenberghe said. Police were called.

It was just after 7.30pm when Mr Halford finally got through to his crew's radio. He asked for their help near the southern flank of the fire.

"They said 'no, we can’t come'," he said. "No explanation."

He followed up with a phone call, and found out they had found Kym and Tom’s car. Two of Mr Halford's crew had been very close with Kym.

"It was a very rude shock but from what we’d just seen, the fact lives were lost ... I don’t know how to word it," Mr Halford said.

About 9pm, crews made another discovery.

They said they were very busy. Well, what does it take? Dave Vandenberghe

“People started to come as word got out, and they discovered the other car. I found that out about 9pm,” Mr Vandenberghe said.

Tom Butcher’s car was found on its side, also crashed into a tree. It was burnt out, and both Mr Butcher and Ms Kohrs-Lichte were found inside the car.

Ms Winther was found outside on the road.

It was just 300 metres up the road from where Mr Curnow's car had been found.

The recovery efforts took nearly 12 months. Credit:DFES

'I could not cope with the stress'

Back in Esperance, Mr Warnes was still working desperately to control the response to the Cascades fire with little resources and little help.

After a gruelling day trying to coordinate evacuations, consolidate containment lines and relaying information with an unreliable communications system, Mr Warnes was then told about the death of Mr Curnow just before a briefing with the shire and other agencies.

“I was distraught. I could not cope with the stress,” he said.

“I felt at that point it was pretty important the senior sergeant [Richard Moore] took control of that side of things.

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“It totally and utterly flattened me. I put my blood, sweat and tears to make that community as safe as best I could.

“You just don’t want to lose life.”

Mr Carmody said he was also left reeling from the news.

"I’m saddened we’ve had four deaths. It affects me," he said.

"But I’m also grateful we’re not here for another 40. I’ve had 40 other people who have described to me how close they came.

"People have been injured, people have been rescued from tractors, my nephew was on the truck when he became engulfed in smoke."

Mr Campbell said the one thing he hoped came from the inquest is that the lives of the four people would result in change. Credit:Trevor Tasker

The coronial inquest finished on Friday, and Coroner Sarah Linton will hand down her findings later this year.