Justo Suazo, 42, a mechanic of #4 ?Left Side? Jane Usher Boulevard, said that he was at home sleeping sometime around 2:45 a.m., when he was roused out of his sleep by the smell of gasoline.

Being a mechanic, he said, he readily recognized the odor, and rushed outside to investigate. This was when he saw a youth, whom he knows, throwing a liquid on the left side of his house. Suazo said that he saw the person striking a match, attempting to set his 16 by 20, one-bedroom house ablaze.

According to Suazo, when he shouted at him, the man dropped the match and the bottle, and ran towards the Central American Boulevard.

Fortunately, he was unable to set the house on fire.

Suazo said that the incident stemmed from something that had happened earlier. He told Amandala that about a week ago, the same young man who tried to burn down his house went to buy a $10.00 phone card for his brother and decided to go back home and tell his brother that he was jacked, instead of taking home the card. Suazo claimed that he saw the young man tear off his shirtsleeve and cut himself on his hand several times to make his story persuasive.

Suazo said that on that night when his home was almost burned down, he had gone to a friend?s house to do him a favor, and saw the same youth drinking with his friend. He said that he warned his friend, in the youth?s presence, that he did not trust him and that he was not a good person to be hanging around with, because of the prior week?s incident. This, he said, must have prompted the youth to try and burn down his house.

We asked Suazo if he felt lucky that he happened to stop the young man from burning down his house. His reply was, ?The young man should feel lucky that I thought about my actions first and called the police.?

Police report that they had, after the incident, recovered a bottle containing gasoline and a box of matches from the scene.