Newsday (www.newsday.com) has issued the following report from Eric Tucker:

The local fire marshal who was responsible for inspecting a nightclub where a 2003 fire killed 100 people said he failed to notice flammable foam around the stage because after he saw an exit door that swung the wrong way, "I really didn't look anywhere."

A previously unreleased transcript of a state police interview with town fire inspector Denis Larocque was among more than 3,000 pages of evidence made public Wednesday from the now-resolved criminal case of the 2003 fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick.

The documents were released two months after the two club owners agreed to plea deals and were sentenced on 100 counts each of involuntary manslaughter for the Feb. 20, 2003 fire. Michael Derderian was given four years in prison, and his brother, Jeffrey, received community service and probation. Eight of the victims lived or worked in Connecticut.

Also serving four years behind bars is Daniel Biechele, who as the tour manager for the rock band GREAT WHITE ignited a pyrotechnics display that sparked flammable foam lining the walls of The Station nightclub. The foam, installed as soundproofing, quickly spread the flames and filled the club with toxic black smoke.

The document release was prompted by open records requests made to the attorney general's office by The Associated Press, The Providence Journal and The Boston Globe.

In a transcript of a brief interview with the state police a few days after the fire, Larocque was asked if he noticed during a November 2002 inspection whether there was foam around the stage area.

"No, I did not," he replied, then adds that he was focused on an exit door that swung the wrong way and that he had previously listed as violating code. He said seeing the door again violating code so surprised him that "I really didn't look anywhere."

A message left for Larocque at the town fire department was not immediately returned.

Most of the documents shed little light on the circumstances surrounding the blaze.

But they do reveal that the building had a history of problems dating back decades, years before the Derderians were involved with the property.

The single-story wooden building had been cited for code violations since at least the 1960s, and there were complaints of overcrowding, shoddy conditions, rowdiness and loud noise, according to reports from local inspectors.

Soon after buying the club, which regularly hosted heavy metal bands, the Derderian brothers installed polyurethane foam to address neighbors' noise complaints. They have maintained that they did not know the foam was flammable.

The state also released documents seized from Michael Derderian's home, including contracts for bands that played at The Station, such as Blue Oyster Cult, Warrant and Anthrax.

Many family members of those killed were upset there was never a criminal trial to examine the evidence, and several said they hoped the evidence in the case would be released publicly.

Claire Bruyere, whose 27-year-old daughter, Bonnie Hamelin, died, said it was important to her to see some of the evidence.

"I just personally can't let it go," she said.

Dave Kane, whose 18-year-old son Nicholas O'Neill was the youngest person killed in the fire, called the release of information "window-dressing" offering little important insight.

"Is it going to say that the fire marshal really did screw up and should be put up on charges?" said Kane, a vocal critic of Attorney General Patrick Lynch and his handling of the fire investigation. "Is it going to say that the building inspectors really did not do their jobs? Of course not."

The documents released Wednesday are just a fraction of the tens of thousands of pages the attorney general's office expects to release over the next several weeks, said spokesman Michael Healey.

A separate petition for the release of secret grand jury testimony is still pending. A closed-door hearing on that request is scheduled for Dec. 13.