(CBC) 
 
 Reunited at last 
 
 Malone — nicknamed Kip for his love of kippers, or smoked herring — said he spent years wondering what happened to Fowler and Earle, who were five and three years old, respectively, on the day of the fire, Dec. 20, 1951. When he came across the burning home on Central Street, he heard a woman on the third floor yelling for someone to help her children. He entered the house, ran up the stairs and found a little girl. He searched another room in the house, but couldn't see anything. So I swept my hand under the bed, and sure enough, I grabbed the little girl.” 
 
 He quickly shuffled the two girls down the stairs, out the door and onto Central Street. He didn’t know the girls or their family, and went on about his business that morning. For the better part of seven decades, Ed 'Kip' Malone has wondered what happened to the young sisters he saved from a burning home in 1951. (CBC) 
 
 Last week, Malone was reunited with those girls he saved — Margaret Fowler and Barbara Earle — at his new home in Conception Bay South. "I'm going to have to digest it for a while, because for a lot of years I've wondered what became of the two little girls," he said. I said, ‘That was me and my sister.’” 
 
 On Monday, Margaret introduced Kip to Barbara Earle, the little girl he pulled from under the bed. Malone's life took him to Ontario, but his retirement brought him back home, and into the lives of Fowler and Earle again. Earle said she never even knew she had a hero, until she met Malone last week. It claimed their grandmother — the woman shouting, “Save the children” — so it was always an emotional, off-limits subject for their family. (CBC) 
 
 The women said they knew very little about the fire and it was too painful to ask their mother and father for any details. Kip Malone, Barbara Earle and Margaret Fowler speak on Thursday, almost 65 years after Malone rescued the pair from a burning home. Kip and Liz, and the sisters, wonder about the odds of the Malones buying a house next to Margaret. “It means there’s a God in heaven above, and He saved (those) women,” he says. "It's not just a coincidence," Earle said. This was meant to be.” 
 
 There’s no doubting that.
– When he was 12, Ed "Kip" Malone was on his way to the store to buy some butter when he happened upon a house on fire and heard a woman calling for someone to help her children. He ran inside and found two little girls, ages 3 and 5, and helped them out of the house. That was in 1951, and the Canadian man always wondered what happened to them. Then, this November, Malone moved into the house next door to Margaret Fowler—and while trading stories about their lives one day, they realized Fowler was one of the two little girls Malone had saved 65 years ago. He has since also been reunited with the other little girl, Fowler's sister Barbara Earle, and the trio told their story to the CBC's St. John's Morning Show this week. "She just looked at me and nearly fainted," Malone says of the moment Fowler told the story of the little girls he'd saved. He found Fowler first, but she refused to leave because her little sister was still somewhere in the house. Malone searched until he finally found Earle under a bed, then led both girls to safety, the Telegram reports. The fire killed the girls' grandmother, and left the girls, their six siblings, and their parents homeless. In the years since, their parents as well as Malone's parents have died. "It's a miracle as far as I'm concerned," Fowler says of the sisters' reunion with Malone. "I think it was meant to be. Both of our parents are dead ... something happened up in heaven that our parents got us together." Adds Earle, "How do you thank him, only to say thank you? I mean, there will always be this connection with us. And that I love you. I don't know what else to say."