Mary Bowerman

USA TODAY Network

Volunteer firefighters in Nova Scotia recently got a strange surprise when they found multiple fish lodged in a fire hydrant.

A fire crew was responding to a grass fire on Tuesday when they made the fishy discovery.

The crew tried to hook their truck to a water pump on the edge of a pond, but were unable to get any water from the pump, Shawn Carey, chief of the Aylesford and District Volunteer Fire Department, told the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

Carey said the crew took the hydrant apart to see what was obstructing the flow and found "a bunch of fish that came up through the strainer."

“How they got in there is beyond me," Carey told CBC. "It actually clogged off our pipe so we couldn't get any water."

Carey said it’s not uncommon for salamanders to find their way into dry hydrants, but he’s never heard of fish. "It was a first for all of us,” he said.

Carey told CBC there were a dozen or so fish in the hydrant. He said a few survived and were thrown back into the pond.

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