While volunteer firefighters continued to chase hot spots through a 90-year-old railroad locomotive repair shop in Colonie, New York, the site's owner was preparing Monday to demolish the cavernous building, town officials said.

Massachusetts-based Guilford Transportation met Monday with town building and fire prevention officials, who told the railroad executives to either secure the facility from future intrusions or tear it down, said chief building inspector Robert Cordell.

He said the company plans to obtain the necessary permits, but a possible holdup is the presence of asbestos in the building's roof system.

The extent of asbestos in the building was studied in 1998, when a firefighter training exercise in an adjacent building got out of hand and set Building 1 ablaze. Some fallout from that fire was tested by neighbors at the time, and asbestos was found in some ashes.

Cordell said the building's asbestos is confined mostly to a layer in the roof, but he wasn't sure of the asbestos' form. "I'm pretty sure it's not friable," he said, referring to the most hazardous type of asbestos.

The inspector said the process to obtain town demolition permits is fairly straightforward. Utilities such as electric, gas and water must be turned off and other precautions, such as securing the scene, need to be followed, he said.

"It shouldn't be a major problem for them to get the permits," Cordell said.

Joe Morrissey of the state Labor Department, which oversees the state's asbestos removal regulations, said Guilford is having a survey done of the building to determine the extent of asbestos and what needs to be done to remove it safely.

While large portions of the building burned Sunday, even more of the 200,000-square-foot facility remained untouched by the fire. Monday afternoon, a firetruck was parked on Ninth Avenue with the aerial ladder swung over a chain-link fence to spray water onto the top wooden frames that lined the roof of the building.

Fire officials decided that the building was structurally sound enough to allow a firetruck to be moved inside so firefighters could use the truck's ladder to reach the underside of the roof, where most of the hot spots remained.

No cause has been determined for the fire, but given the building's secluded location and history of being a hangout for teenagers, officials believe the fire was either caused by a smaller fire that was not completely put out or by someone intentionally setting the building ablaze.

Guilford Rail took ownership of the building from the bankrupt Delaware & Hudson Railway in the early 1980s. Since about 1993, the company has had the 80-acre property on the market for sale.