Police arrested a 10-year-old and a 14-year-old at 2:15 a.m. today after the two boys started a fire in a wastebasket on the rooftop of their home on the 3000 block of Zephyr Street.

Both boys were charged with arson, criminal mischief and causing or risking a catastrophe; the 10-year-old has also been charged with starting another trash fire on nearby Glenmawr Avenue on June 18. Police cannot release their names because they are juveniles, but the boys are brothers.

Sheraden has been plagued with arson cases since the beginning of June; in the past six weeks before this morning, there have been nine fires in the neighborhood.

Detectives were patrolling Sheraden last night on the lookout for arsonists when they began to smell smoke coming from a home on Zephyr Street. At the same time, a neighbor called 911 and reported that the two boys were on the roof of their house, feeding a small fire.

Police apprehended the two boys on the back porch of their house and took them to the Shuman Juvenile Detention Center. No one was harmed by the fire, and the house had melted roof shingles. Major Crimes Cmdr. Thomas Stangrecki declined to say whether boys' parents knew about the trash fire, but they were inside the house when police arrived on the scene. Detectives interviewed the parents, and Cmdr. Stangrecki said they were "cooperative" with police.

Cmdr. Stangrecki said police do not believe that any one actor is responsible for all the Sheraden fires of the last six weeks. Since the start of the arson cases, increasing numbers of detectives have been assigned to patrol the Sheraden area at night, he said.