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Arkansas police officer died saving fiancée hours after proposing, her mother says

By CNN

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    ROGERS, Arkansas (KHBS, KHOG) — A Rogers police officer proposed to his girlfriend hours before he died while trying to save her from drowning in the Elk River, according to the woman’s mother.

Officer Fred Marsh, 24, died July 18 while canoeing with his fiancée and friends. Rogers police said Tuesday that Marsh died while trying to save a person who was drowning.

Sheryl Padgett said that person was her daughter, who had become engaged to Marsh earlier that morning.

“They had been together for three beautiful years, and they had a very beautiful, loving relationship,” Padgett said. “Even though legally he was not my son-in-law, he will forever be my son.”

Padgett said the couple was on the river with another Rogers police officer and that officer’s wife. The group had spent much of the day on the water before stopping as temperatures climbed.

Padgett said her daughter entered the water and began struggling against the current while trying to return to a kayak. The other officer went to help her, and Marsh joined the rescue effort when he saw his fiancée was in distress.

Padgett said her daughter was eventually pushed toward a canoe, but Marsh became caught in the current and began calling for help. The group and other people on the river tried to reach him, but he went underwater and did not resurface.

“He saw the love of his life in distress, and he was going to help his friend and do what a good human would do,” Padgett said. “He gave his life helping someone else.”

Marsh had proposed to Padgett’s daughter earlier that day as the couple prepared to build a life together in Northwest Arkansas.

Marsh was in his first year with the Rogers Police Department. He graduated from the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy on April 9 and had recently begun serving as an officer.

Padgett described Marsh as a “gentle giant” who was loving, hardworking and guided by his Christian faith. She said he never hesitated when someone needed help.

“There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for anyone,” Padgett said. “You didn’t have to tell him. You didn’t have to beg him. He just was willing and would jump in there and do whatever it took to help someone.”

Padgett said she began calling Marsh her son soon after he entered the family. She had lost her only son in a fatal accident four years earlier and said Marsh helped fill part of the void that loss left behind.

“We instantly made a connection and a bond,” she said. “I called him son, and he called me mama.”

A motorcade escorted Marsh’s body through Northwest Arkansas on Monday as people gathered along the route to honor him. Padgett said the response from law enforcement and the Rogers community showed the family how many lives Marsh had touched.

“They made it very clear that Fred was not just their family, but so was my daughter, my family and, even more importantly, Fred’s family,” Padgett said.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Marsh’s family. Padgett said the family expects officers, former classmates, childhood friends and others from across the state to attend.

She encouraged people who want to honor Marsh to follow the example he set by treating others with compassion.

“Let’s do something in Fred’s honor,” Padgett said. “Be kind to your fellow man. When Fred loved, he loved with everything he had, and he loved well.”

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Blazes burning with the intensity of ‘atomic bombs’: Europe enters a new era of mega fires

By CNN
(CNN) — The vast blazes ripping through southwestern France burned so intensely they created a powerful, fire-generated thunderstorm. This rare phenomenon is sometimes seen in the kinds of megafires that afflict the US and Canada, but was unprecedented in France, until now — and it’s just one sign that Europe is entering a new fire era, experts say.Europe has always had wildfires, but they are becoming increasingly extreme as the climate crisis tightens its grip. Firefighters in France and Spain are currently trying to tame blazes more ferocious and more erratic than anything they’ve tackled before.This follows from Europe’s record-breaking fire season last year, with experts saying the continent is joining a long list of regions — from Siberia to the Amazon — which now endure back-to-back extreme fire seasons.“We have entered an era of fires that cannot be extinguished,” said Víctor Resco de Dios, lecturer of forestry engineering and global change at the University of Lleida in Spain. “These are fires that burn with the intensity of several atomic bombs.”🔥 CNN Weather app brings you climate news and local weatherWildfires in France have now scorched more than 116,000 hectares (roughly 290,000 acres), making them the largest on record for the country, and there are still months of wildfire season left.“The situation we face today is the hardest we’ve ever recorded, the hardest since the Second World War,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday on a visit to Bordeaux. He called the fires “totally unprecedented.”One of the most visceral examples of this was the appearance of fire clouds, or “pyrocumulonimbus,” which formed over the weekend in the Gironde region, near Bordeaux, according to fire authorities.Fire clouds emerge when particularly intense wildfires generate a plume of extreme heat, which rises rapidly into the cooler air above and condenses into towering thunderstorm clouds. These can create their own wind, rain and lightning and transform blazes into erratic and unpredictable self-feeding firestorms.The phenomenon is well documented in Australia, Canada and the US — the Los Angeles fires in 2025 produced a rare tornado, or firenado — but they are not at all common in Europe.The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said it could not yet say for certain this was France’s first pyrocumulonimbus. “However, if confirmed, its development would highlight the exceptional intensity of the current fire and the extraordinary atmospheric conditions under which it is burning,” said Francesca Di Giuseppe, fire forecast coordinator at the ECMWF.The scale of the fires is also remarkable, experts said. They have scorched huge tracts of land across France and Spain, both of which have requested EU assistance. “A synchronized, multinational wildfire crisis is rare in Europe,” said Stefan Doerr, director of the Centre for Wildfire Research at Swansea University in Wales.The fires are raging near major cities, including one which has torn through the mountainous province of Avila, west of the Spanish capital Madrid, and is now the country’s largest on record, authorities have said.“What is uncommon is the current number of destructive wildfires: fires that spread rapidly, overwhelm fire brigades and force communities to evacuate,” said Guillermo Rein, professor of fire science at Imperial College London. More than 300,000 people have been evacuated across the two countries so far.Complete suppression of fires of this magnitude is almost impossible until the fuel runs out or persistent rain arrives, no matter how many firefighting resources are mobilized, experts say.“In Australia, parts of the US and Canada, there is a general expectation and acceptance of out-of-control wildfires,” said Swansea University’s Doerr. “In Europe there is still a widely held notion that such fires can be entirely prevented.”Why are these fires so bad?Each wildfire is complex and unique and affected by many factors, including land management, terrain and firefighting resources. But extreme weather, made worse by climate change, has been a key driver of Europe’s fires, scientists say.Global warming is bringing stronger swings between wet and dry extremes. It’s a “whiplash effect,” said Matthew Jones, an independent research fellow at the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia in England.Last winter was unusually wet in France and Spain, leading a surge in vegetation growth. Then the weather flipped. Since May, Western Europe has been roiled by a succession of brutal heat waves, which parched the landscape. This heat provided “the ‘crack of the whip’ in the whiplash effect, turning that dense vegetation into highly combustible fuel,” Jones said.As France and Spain brace for their fourth heat wave of the summer, there are fears it may exacerbate and already dangerous situation.‘Dantean scenarios’Extinguishing the current fires completely may take months, authorities have said, but their impacts will linger long after that.The hazardous, smoke-filled skies they produce are harmful to health. Pollution from wildfires is estimated to cause more than 100,000 deaths globally every year.There’s also the damage to economies. These fires are raging near major European cities, affecting tourist hotspots, wine-growing regions and vital defense hubs.More than that, they may change people’s relationship with the land they live on, now they find themselves under the constant threat of uncontrollable fires.Into the future, scientists say we should expect fires — in Europe as elsewhere — to become more frequent and more extreme as long as humans continue to burn fossil fuels and push up temperatures.“It’s difficult to predict how far things might go,” said Resco de Dios, “we will soon be unable to rule out Dantean scenarios like those seen in California or Australia, with fires or fire complexes reaching hundreds of thousands of hectares or even a million hectares.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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