State Attorney General Anne Lopez soft-pedaled the miserable performance of Maui Mayor Richard Bissen in the first of three reports on the August Lahaina wildfire, which killed 101 people and destroyed 3,000 homes, saying, “I am not commenting at this time on the actions of anybody.”

She only singled out the virtue of firefighters and police. “These folks risked their lives for hours, saving people,” she said.

Yes, front-line responders were heroic, but the attorney general’s meticulous 400-page timeline by the Fire Safety Research Institute, along with information we already knew, make clear firefighters and police could have saved more lives and property if not saddled with inept county leadership.

The report depicts Bissen as shuttling cluelessly between the emergency center, his office and a medical appointment, asking “layperson questions,” getting spotty information from social media and generally trying to stay out of the way as the fire built.

He turned down help from other counties and was slow to contact Maj. Gen. Kenneth Hara, head of state emergency management and the Hawaii National Guard. Hara offered full cooperation but was given incomplete information and went to bed unaware of the magnitude of the tragedy unfolding in Lahaina.

Bissen failed to order his little-qualified emergency management director, Herman Andaya, to return from a conference on Oahu, where he monitored the situation via texts with an aide who had little accurate information to give.

The mayor and Andaya hadn’t mobilized emergency operations in advance despite warnings from the National Weather Service that passing hurricane winds posed extreme wildfire risks that day.

Andaya, since sent packing, told the attorney general’s investigators the mayor felt Maui could handle the situation on its own and didn’t need to call in the National Guard or other outside help. He didn’t return from his conference until Lahaina was already in ashes.

Bissen is right; it wasn’t his job to tell emergency workers how to do theirs.

It was his job, however, to set a tone of urgency, assure key information was gathered and communicated to the front line and the public, and marshal all possible help.

The mayor’s poor communication, especially — before, during and after the tragedy — caused public confusion and amounted to stonewalling.

The county failed to adequately alert the public about the coming storm and left emergency responders without appropriate equipment to talk to each other.

Afterward, Bissen circled the wagons and remained mostly mum as the consequences of his nonchalance became obvious. News reporters routinely get “no comment” responses when seeking information from the mayor’s office.

Incredibly, the county resisted giving state investigators basic records, and many had to be subpoenaed.

Besides two more attorney general reports on what went wrong and how to prevent repeats, the cause of the fire is being investigated by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. Numerous lawsuits are hashing out liability for the lost lives and $5 billion in property damage.

It was a tough break for Bissen, a former state judge, to catch such a tragedy his first year in office, but a worse break for Maui citizens that he aspired to a leadership post he was woefully unprepared for.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.