IT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO tonight that a fire engulfed the Station nightclub, killing 100 people trapped inside.

By now, I am told, people in Rhode Island are heartily sick of the topic and don’t want to read one more word about it. It’s a depressing subject, and many readers, I realize, would rather ponder global warming or the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith.

But I beg your forbearance. I find it hard to let it go.

I think often of the families who lost loved ones, some of whom have graciously shared their thoughts with me. I think of the horribly burned and maimed, who must struggle every day with pain and unimaginable frustration, long after the cameras and well-wishers are gone.

I think that we in Rhode Island failed them.

During the seven years I have lived here, I have seen many shocking instances of indifference to the public interest. But I have to say: This is the saddest and most embarrassing of all.

I still find it incredible — absolutely stunning — that 100 people could perish in a death trap, duly inspected by a government official, and that Rhode Island would fail to get to the bottom of it, as did Massachusetts after Boston’s Coconut Grove nightclub fire (1942) and New York after the Triangle factory fire (1911). It’s as if the Ocean State didn’t want to look too closely.

Governor Carcieri and legislative leaders could have insisted on a full inquiry, in the name of preventing future such horrors. Instead, they let the matter drop.

The legislature’s only response was to pass a draconian new fire code that pummels the innocent. Many businesses as well as schools, churches and libraries, though safe by reasonable standards, now face enormous costs to provide excessive protection. But the truth is, and everyone knows it, the old fire code was not the problem at the Station nightclub. Had that code simply been enforced, no one would have died.

In a public inquiry of the inspection process, with testimony taken under oath, Rhode Island could have asked many of those in the know some key questions. Paramount among them:

•Why did West Warwick fire officials fail to note — and to order the removal of — highly flammable foam insulation put up all over the nightclub?

•Is it reasonable to expect that fire inspectors notice things like that and take action? Why or why not? What punishment should there be for those who are negligent in that duty?

•Why did officials twice increase the club’s capacity, a clear factor in the high death toll?

Why, in short, did the state’s investigative process fail the public so egregiously, leading to death on a massive scale, and what should we do about it?

That, and not the fire code itself, was the issue.

Instead of asking these questions, the state turned everything over to Rhode Island Atty. Gen. Patrick Lynch for criminal prosecution. Any answers would have to come through his efforts.

Indeed, citing the precedence of criminal prosecution, Mr. Lynch blocked even the National Institute of Standards and Technology from gaining access to witnesses and some evidence — including inspection-report details — that could have helped explain why the disaster was so bad. (See “A.G. blocked experts from gaining facts,” by Glenn Corbett, Commentary, Oct. 16, 2006.)

In the end, the great case produced a tiny fizzle. Mr. Lynch chose to prosecute a band manager and two nightclub owners. His office cut a deal to keep one of those owners from spending a day in jail. There was no public trial with testimony under oath, which could have helped illuminate the government’s failure to protect the public.

Mr. Lynch effectively exonerated West Warwick Fire Marshal Denis Larocque, saying he could not be charged under Rhode Island general laws. There was some disagreement about that: Lawyer William Harsch, a candidate for A.G. last year, insisted that the law provides for negligence on this scale to be criminally prosecuted, something he vowed to do if elected. But voters re-elected Mr. Lynch by a comfortable margin, in effect giving his handling of the Station case their seal of approval.

Grand jury testimony released to the public after Mr. Lynch was safely returned to power showed his office vigorously steered the panel away from prosecution of Mr. Larocque. One grand juror, whose identity was kept secret, asked the key question of the debacle: “Why have a fire marshal? If the fire marshal did nothing, [and is] not responsible for anything, why have a fire marshal? There’s no use in having a fire marshal.”

Why, indeed?

As for why the state’s leaders seemed so reluctant to explore publicly the situation in West Warwick, citizens can only speculate. As time passes, people will shift their attention to other matters. Much that could have been learned will remain a mystery, the answers gradually erased by death and delay.

As a Rhode Island citizen, I am deeply sorry for that. The victims and their families certainly deserved better from all of us.

Edward Achorn is The Journal’s deputy editorial-pages editor ( eachorn@projo.com).