MA Chelsea firefighter who “exemplified the fire service to the nth degree” lost the fight of his life on Saturday to aggressive esophageal cancer, the city’s director of Emergency Management and 911 Communications said yesterday.
Peter Franz Kannler, a father of two from Townsend whose heroic struggle with the disease was profiled by the Boston Herald in February, was 37 years old.
“Peter was a great, great guy. He really was. Peter was a well-liked guy,” said Chelsea Emergency Management and 911 Communications Director Allan I. Alpert.
“A tough loss,” said Bob Better, the former Chelsea fire chief.
Alpert said Kannler, who succumbed after approximately a week in hospice care, will be feted with full honors.
Under the state’s Presumptive Disability Law, Kannler’s death is deemed suffered in the line of duty because he was still on the Chelsea Fire Department roster.
In addition to being an instructor at the state Fire Academy, Kannler served with FEMA’s Beverly-based Massachusetts Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue Team.
“The fire service was all around him,” Alpert said. “If anyone exemplified the fire service to the nth degree, it was Peter.”
Before cancer took him off the job, Kannler rode on the busiest engine in the city, covering the Bellingham Square area to the waterfront. He was known for being tough as “20-grit sandpaper.”
But the toughest battle of his life was the cancer usually found in people twice his age.
“You can sit in your bedroom and cry or you can fight it,” Kannler told the Herald last winter. “I’m not going to let it define me. I’m just not going to give up.”
In addition to his wife of eight years, Kannler is survived by his two young daughters, his parents and two sisters.
In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made in Kannler’s memory to the Kiley and Hannah Kannler Educational Fund, c/o Chelsea Federal Credit Union, 500 Broadway, Chelsea, MA 02150.
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