Amanda Bynes stripped off her pants to chase after gasoline-soaked dog after starting fire in stranger’s driveway, says witness

Amanda Bynes stripped off her pants to chase after gasoline-soaked dog after starting fire in stranger’s driveway, says witness

Surveillance footage shows the former child star as she paces around a liquor store with the tiny dog in her arms and makes a bee line through an employees-only door next to the cash register.

Amanda Bynes pictured with her pup while out in New York.

Amanda Bynes stripped her pants off in a burning driveway and threatened to call 911 on the first passerby to rush to her aid, the Good Samaritan told the Daily News Wednesday.

Andrew Liverpool, 24, said he was driving home in Thousand Oaks, Calif., Monday night when he noticed a sizable fire in a residential driveway and saw a woman lying next to the blaze, trying to snuff flames on her left pant leg.

"I pulled over and ran over and she was pantsless by this time, running after her dog," he recalled to the News. "I asked her, 'Where's your garden hose?' I thought it was her house at first."

He said he didn't immediately recognize Bynes but was struck by her "large blond wig" and "discombobulated" demeanor.

He said she was alone in the driveway with a burning gas canister and a large super soaker water gun.

He asked if she was hurt, and she said, "No," he recalled.

Liverpool said he moved the burning items to the center of the driveway with his boot-clad foot and yelled for someone to call 911 when four others stopped to help.

The driveway where Amanda Bynes allegedly set fires using gasoline cans.

Moments later he looked around for Bynes and realized she had vanished -- along with her burned black pants.

After giving his statement to firefighters, Liverpool said he hopped back in his car and went to look for Bynes.

Meanwhile, the "Hairspray" actress purportedly walked a block down the street and into a liquor store with her pet Pomeranian in her arms.

She reeked of gasoline as she tried to rinse her poor pooch in a back-office sink, a clerk at the store told the News.

"She was trying to wash the dog. She didn't ask permission to go in the back on her own," Southwest Market & Deli employee Tony Darghali told the Daily News.

Darghali was not on duty at the time but heard about the two-minute incident from his co-workers.

"When (the clerk on duty) went back there to see what she was doing, he could smell gasoline. She seemed freaked out and just kind of walked out. I don't think there was a whole lot of communication," he said. "It looks like the poor girl needs some help."

Amanda Bynes was detained and taken for a mental health evaluation following the incident.

shows Bynes, 27, pacing around the store before making a bee line through an employees-only door next to the cash register.

According to the video's time stamp, Bynes made the pup-related pit stop one minute after police received the 911 call about the nearby fire.

The owner of the torched driveway told the News she didn't know Bynes. Bynes' parents live around the block. They have been estranged from their daughter in recent months.

Liverpool said he later spotted Bynes walking with her dog near the deli's strip mall. He pulled over and called 911 as he watched her stop for a minute at a corner gas station and begin to talk on her cell phone.

Moments later a taxi appeared, and Bynes rushed into an intersection to grab it, he said.

"I got there before she did and blocked her path and told the taxi driver not to take her," Liverpool recalled to the News.

That's when Liverpool got a good look and recognized the former Nickelodeon star who briefly attended his high school.

Amanda Bynes’ parents pictured leaving a Los Angeles-area hospital where the actress is believed to be hospitalized.

"Don't touch me or I'll call 911!" Bynes barked at him when he tried to stop her from entering the cab, he recalled.

"She said she had to go, that her dog was burnt," he recalled. "I saw the dog was wet, but I didn't smell burnt hair or anything."

He said Bynes jumped in the back seat, and the cab sped off.

Luckily, his 911 call alerted cops to the cab, he said, and they found Bynes a short time later.

Capt. Don Aguilar with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department confirmed Bynes was "detained and taken for a mental health evaluation" at a local hospital.

He said there was no plan to launch a criminal investigation "at this time."

"It's sad," Bonnie Braaten, the woman who owns the burned driveway, told The News. "I'm glad no one was hurt and it didn't spread to my house and my neighbor's house. It could have been really bad."

Bynes' parents declined to comment to The News Tuesday but were photographed leaving a hospital.

Unidentified sources told TMZ.com that Bynes is exhibiting signs of schizophrenia and that her parents plan to seek a court-ordered conservatorship.