PRESTONSBURG – Two Prestonsburg High School students are now being held at a juvenile detention center in Breathitt County after police arrested them for allegedly setting off smoke bombs at the school Wednesday.

The two students, ages 15 and 16, set the bombs off Wednesday morning just after 8 a.m. during first class change, school officials said. The first was set in a crowded hallway of the school and a second outside where more students were getting off buses.

According to police, the teens set fire to ping pong balls wrapped in aluminum, the first of which created a fire in the hallway that was later extinguished by another student.

As school officials scrambled to calm the some 200 students running from the smoke and fire, PHS Principal Ted George said his assistant principal spotted the two accused teens outside setting the second bomb near the bus stop.

The two were immediately rounded up and law enforcement officials were called to the scene.

“The bombs smoked up the hallways and left an odor,” said officer Gerald Clark. “No students or faculty were injured or evacuated from the building.”

In addition to statements from administration about the students who were allegedly involved, police also found two pieces of aluminum foil and recovered them as evidence at the scene.

George said that a clear message was sent Wednesday that what some might call pranks would not be tolerated at the school, adding that hundreds of students were placed into a dangerous situation as a result of the early morning incident.

Both of the teens, who George said admitted to him and other administrators that they set fire to the homemade bombs, have been charged with first-degree arson and first-degree wanton endangerment and are scheduled to appear in court in Floyd County to answer to those charges tomorrow.