Arson Ruled Out as Cause of Fire as Asbestos Cleanup Is Ordered : Aftermath: County health services officials also scramble for temporary offices for management staff.

As investigators ruled out arson in the spectacular high-rise fire that devastated the County Department of Health Services administration building, officials ordered an asbestos cleanup Sunday and worked feverishly to relocate vital management offices.

The asbestos, used for insulation in the 1970s-structure, was spread throughout the downtown office building by water used to extinguish the blaze that destroyed much of the seventh floor. Asbestos has been linked to fatal respiratory diseases.

Although the building is the bureaucratic nerve center of a vast network providing health care to tens of thousands of people, officials said there will be little effect on services at county hospitals and clinics.

Still, health officials grappled with the difficult task of finding temporary office space for as many as 500 of the building’s 700 administrative employees scheduled to return to work Tuesday after the Presidents’ Day holiday.

“The problem is no one knows where they’re going to be moving,” said department spokeswoman Sharon Wanglin as officials toured the damaged building. “We have to concentrate on getting people at the right location with all the equipment and telephones they need.”

Fire investigators also worked throughout the day to determine the cause of the blaze, in which two firefighters suffered minor injuries. Only five or six workers were in the building at the time of the fire and all escaped.

Michael Little, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department, said the investigation was proceeding slowly because the intense heat of the fire--up to 1,500 degrees--destroyed much of the evidence.

“With those temperatures, some things just won’t exist,” he said. “They really have to get in there and sift and sift.”

The fire originated in the northwest corner of the building, but it was not deliberately set, Little said.

Few parts of the 14-story office building escaped damage. Although the fire was confined to the seventh floor, smoke and soot rose to cover walls and carpets as high as the 10th floor, county officials said. Water seeped through ceilings and walls as far down as the third floor.

By Sunday afternoon, teams inspecting the building had declared four floors to be safe.

Earlier, a county official escorted a pool reporter and camera crew through the seventh floor. All wore protective suits, including gloves, boots and respirators.

There was much evidence of the fire’s capriciousness. Unburned among the melted computer terminals and file cabinets were 15 volumes entitled “National Fire Code” and several hundred pamphlets that asked: “It’s an Emergency: Do You Know What to Do?”

The department’s store of vaccines on the first and second floors was spared, as were the 11th- and 12th-floor laboratories.

Robert Gates, health services director, said some employees may be able to return to the building Tuesday, while others may be displaced for up to a year.

Some will work in auditoriums at County-USC Medical Center and at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey. Others will work temporarily in office space donated by IBM.

The fire has renewed debate about whether older high-rise office buildings should be retrofitted with sprinklers. Firefighters said sprinklers would have limited the damage in the blaze.

A city ordinance adopted after the 1988 First Interstate fire requires sprinklers to be installed in older buildings. But it does not apply to residential, state, county and federal buildings. Department officials said their financially strapped agency does not have the $50 million needed to install sprinklers in its older buildings.