Firefighters free 8-foot snake trapped in owner's gas heater

GAINSBOROUGH, England, June 29 (UPI) -- A fire department in Britain shared photos from the unusual rescue of an 8-foot snake that slithered into its owner's gas heater.

The Gainsborough Fire Station posted a series of photos to Twitter showing scenes from the rescue of Billy the boa constrictor from a gas heater at his owner's Gainsborough home about 3 a.m. Tuesday.

"We would have thought 'that's just a snake that's crawled underneath or behind, it won't be too bad,'" Sky News quoted crew manager Dave Brierley as saying. "When we got there it was a big beast and had actually crawled inside, through a vent, and got itself trapped in the workings. It was a tricky job."

Brierley said it took the five-person crew about an hour to dismantle the heater and free the snake.

"We haven't had anything like this before. The owner has it out of its vivarium from time to time and it usually coils up around a pouffe but this time it didn't want to go back into the vivarium," Brierley said. "So it went into the fire and wouldn't come out."

Brierley said his crew joked the rescue will "go down in hiss-tory."