Now a huge heap of charred wood and metal, the burned portion of the Santana Row shopping center may be reincarnated as tomorrow's freeways and garden mulch.

Once fire inspectors conclude their investigation into the cause of Monday's conflagration, crews can begin cleaning up the tons of debris, much of which can be recycled.

The cleanup could take up to three weeks, which would cut into the crucial early holiday shopping season at the center. Demolition contractors estimated the job could cost up to $1 million.

The salvaged wood from the 65-foot-tall building can be shredded for compost and mulch, and the sheet metal melted and forged into new household appliances. Even the concrete can be ground up and used in the roadbed of highways.

``Eighty to 90 percent of it could be recycled,'' said Doug Galbraith, of ABCO Construction, a San Martin firm that specializes in demolition.

Federal Realty Investment Trust, the company developing the regional mall and housing complex, is still deciding whether to hire an outside contractor that specializes in demolition or use existing crews, general manager Tom Miles said.

The task won't be as long and painstaking as the World Trade Center cleanup. Because no deaths were involved, crews won't have to sift debris for human remains; instead they can scoop it up by the dump truck-load and haul it away quickly.

``Demolition is a whole lot easier than construction,'' said Nathan P. Fishkin, Federal Realty's senior vice president.

Wednesday, crews already had erected a 6-foot cyclone fence around the six-acre building. Backhoes were scooping up twisted steel and debris from the area and depositing it in a red dumpster. Pumps sucked water used to fight the fire out of the building's underground garage.

The firm hopes to salvage at least the commercial part of the building -- the basement and first several levels -- which are concrete and appear relatively undamaged. The five levels of housing atop the concrete base appear to have been damaged beyond repair, Miles said.

The base is important because it has 36 stores -- about 20 percent of the center's retail shops -- as well as 940 of the project's 2,400 parking spaces. Although the parking spaces are less than 40 percent of the center's total parking capacity, they are essential because they're centrally located.

No explosives will be necessary to remove the upper portion of the building, experts said. Instead, heavy equipment such as excavators with claw-like arms will rip into the fire-scarred carcass.

The building does not contain asbestos, which would have made it riskier and more time-consuming to demolish.

Once the damaged part of the building is torn down, crews will remove water and soot from the rest using special dry sponges, powerful vacuums and dehumidifiers.

Fire restoration work has already begun at some of the condominiums and apartments in the Moorpark neighborhood that also burned in Monday's fire.

Kevin Lahey, manager of the San Jose branch of Olympic Restoration, said 25 of his workers were assessing and cleaning up the damage at six condominiums at Moorpark Village, one of the two complexes affected by the shopping center fire.

Crews wearing safety goggles and dust masks are photographing and listing the personal contents of each housing unit, Lahey said.

Once the unit is emptied, the salvageable property will be returned to the owners or tenants or put into storage. Workers then will dry out the homes, a considerable task given the amount of water used to fight the fire.

``They used at least 50,000 gallons of water on this one,'' Lahey said.

Water-soaked walls are dried by drilling holes into them and pumping in air. Dehumidifiers pull moisture from the air, and that water is emptied into a toilet or sink. Smoke odors are removed by ozone machines and air scrubbers, devices that suck microscopic ash out of the air, walls, floors and ceilings and trap them in filters.

Lahey said workers in the demolition and restoration field need special training, and not just for the physical part of the job.

``We have to be very sensitive to the customers because they're very emotionally fragile,'' he said. ``Some of them have lost everything. Sometimes they'll take it out on us, and our people need to remain calm and supportive, and not take it personally.''

Contact Tracey Kaplan at tkaplan@sjmercury.com or (408) 278-3482.