Evidence released yesterday by the attorney general’s office includes this picture of the Station fire. Also released was an account by a witness who said Great White manager Dan Biechele did not immediately grasp the danger of the fire after it began.

Washington (Coventry) Fire Dept.

PROVIDENCE – Nearly five years after The Station nightclub burned down and killed 100 people, the attorney general’s office has released its list of 458 people who were inside the club for a concert by the band Great White when it caught fire.

The number of occupants, close to a Providence Journal tally of 443 and collected through hundreds of interviews, is above the club’s maximum occupancy of 404. The list of names was tucked among mounds of Station-related evidence released yesterday by Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, enough material to fill 45 computer CDs.

The public release of evidence followed a Providence Journal request under the Rhode Island Access to Public Records Act; it is the fourth evidence release in the Station case, and expected to be the last. In total, the Station evidence opened to the public consists of more than 34,000 documents, nearly 3,000 photographs and 100 hours of digital audio and video files, enough material to fill 242 CDs.

“Thousands of staff hours” went into reviewing the material before release, Lynch said in a statement. Personal information in the files, such as home numbers, addresses and Social Security numbers were blacked out by hand.

Within minutes of the Feb. 20, 2003, fire at the old wooden roadhouse in West Warwick, prosecutors began collecting evidence, building a case that club owners Michael and Jeffrey Derderian had soundproofed their club with flammable packing foam in violation of the state fire code, and that Great White tour manager Daniel Biechele had started the fire with illegal pyrotechnics.

Biechele and the Derderians were indicted in December 2003. For another three years, prosecutors continued to add to the evidence, building a massive case for the most anticipated criminal trial in Rhode Island since the murder trials of Newport socialite Claus von Bulow.

The Derderians’ criminal trial never happened.

In plea agreements last year, Michael was sentenced to serve four years in jail, and Jeffrey was ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. Biechele was sentenced to spend four years in jail, but is expected to be paroled in March, after serving 22 months.

The documents, photographs and recordings released yesterday spanned the breadth of the investigation, filling some gaps in the public’s knowledge about the tragedy, without dramatic revelations. Questions that have persisted for nearly five years are still open.

Some of those questions involve Denis Larocque, the West Warwick fire inspector publicly criticized by victims’ families for never noting the flammable foam in any of his inspections.

How did Larocque miss the foam?

The documents released yesterday show that Larocque was well credentialed in fire safety and inspection. Over a span of more than 25 years, Larocque participated in more than 50 courses ranging in topic from “recognizing and identifying hazardous materials” to “fatal fire investigations.”

Yet Larocque inspected The Station at least twice after the summer of 2000, when hundreds of square feet of flammable packing foam were glued to the interior walls in violation of the fire code. Larocque never noted the foam while citing the club for other violations, such as malfunctioning doors and lights.

And why did Larocque increase the club’s capacity from 317 to 404? Documents released yesterday show that within 45 minutes of the fire, West Warwick police were already questioning Jeff Derderian about overcrowding and the soundproofing foam. Derderian told the police he had checked the crowd counter around 10 p.m., and that it had read 250 to 260 people.

“Jeffrey Derderian was vague and unsure answering many questions,” according to a police report of that early interview. “He wasn’t able to provide the last names of a number of his employees. He didn’t know where the egg crate sound-absorbing material had been obtained from or when.”

At least two documents released yesterday misrepresent the legal capacity of the club. A 2001 concert agreement for the band Ants Marching states the club capacity at 600. A spreadsheet on Dan Biechele’s computer, outlining the details of the Great White concert, listed The Station’s capacity at 550.

A few hours after the fire, Jeff Derderian sat for another police interview. He “adamantly denied” pyrotechnics had ever been used in his club before Great White, according to a police report. In the coming days, musicians who had played the club offered disputing accounts.

The documents released yesterday do not settle a longtime point of dispute between the Derderians and Great White: Did the brothers give the band permission to ignite pyrotechnics? Biechele says yes; the brothers deny giving him permission. [Regardless, Biechele did not have the required fireworks permits, and the pyrotechnics were illegal with or without the club owners’ permission.]

Biechele’s pre-show spreadsheet for the Station concert has a checkbox for “PYRO,” which is filled in “yes.” However, the band’s 10-page “technical specs” for the show meticulously describe how the stage should be set up, but make no mention of pyrotechnics.

In an e-mail to The Journal, Jeff Derderian said his lawyers compared Biechele’s spreadsheets with witness statements from other clubs on the 2003 Great White tour, finding “inconsistencies on the issue of permission for pyrotechnics.”

Club managers at seven other venues “also told investigators that no permission had ever been requested or given for pyrotechnics, but pyrotechnics were in fact used,” Derderian said. Those statements, “clearly dispute … the computer record that inaccurately attempts to show that permission was asked and given by the Station. Permission was not asked and it was not given.”

The documents give a hint to the difficulties the Derderians had in running the club. On Feb. 20, 2002, exactly one year before the fire, the Derderians’ landlord, Triton Realty, wrote a letter to the brothers informing them that their rent was going up about $65, to $3,826 per month. The letter, from Triton president Mary Jo Carolan, also threatened an 18-percent penalty if the Derderians failed to reimburse the landlord $2,906 in sewer fees.

Two months before the fire, the Derderians informed Carolan that they had buyers for their business, according to an attorney general inter-office memo. Carolan wanted the new buyer’s credentials to run a nightclub, and wanted the brothers to post $45,000 in escrow “to insure against failure on the part of their proposed buyers.” In response, Michael Derderian got “very excited,” stamped his feet, cursed and accused Carolan of extortion, according to what she told investigators.

The material released yesterday gave one of the best, close-up accounts of the early moments of the fire.

Mario Giamei Jr., an occasional bouncer at the nightclub who attended the Great White concert as a customer, stood at the side of the stage near the stage door and near Biechele, who ignited the fireworks. Almost immediately after the fireworks went off, Biechele acknowledged making a serious mistake, according to a statement Giamei gave to an investigator.

Biechele “had kind of a smirk on his face because I think he thought it wasn’t a big deal. Because, quite frankly, the fire wasn’t spreading really bad at first,” Giamei stated. “I had half a mind to jump on the stage myself with my jacket and put it out because, you know, I figured I could hit it with my leather coat and knock it out pretty easy.”

But that changed quickly.

“This guy and girl walked towards the back door. They were just patrons there but they knew it was an emergency exit, and he had a look on his face that he knew this was going to be bad. And he walked and opened up the door, and, when he opened up that door, frankly, I think that’s when the fire really spread.”

The Station fire broke out just after 11 p.m. Less than three hours later, as the chaos still swirled, the nightclub had become a formal crime scene, complete with a sign-in sheet to document who visited.

A West Warwick police detective named Ribbing signed in first, at 2:03 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 21. Over the next 48 hours, a parade of officials, investigators and workers checked in. They included representatives of: the state fire marshal; the North Kingstown Fire Department; Ocean State Transfer, a private livery service that moves bodies to the medical examiner’s office for autopsy; the Rhode Island State Police; the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency; the Warwick Police Department; the governor’s office, including Governor Carcieri; the Providence Police Department; the Coventry Police Department; the National Fire Protection Association, a private agency that develops model fire codes used in many government jurisdictions; the attorney general; the Rhode Island Office of State Medical Examiners; Ventura Fence, which installed fencing around the site; and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Some of the documents chill.

This e-mail, with no context, was recovered by the police from Biechele’s computer: “They are even letting play with the ewxplosives (sic) on this tour. I won’t be firing them for this performance due to CA laws, permits and licenses, but … it was definitely fun to do for the rest of the tour. And I didn’t leave any permanent (Unrepairable) damage anywhere in the country. Hope all is well, Talk to you soon, DAN.”

With reports from staff writer Tracy Breton.

tmooney@projo.com