Fire control takes up almost a third of Sovereign's bridge. More than any other single factor, fire is the primary danger at sea. If a fire gets out of control the ship risks either burning herself out or capsizing and sinking from the weight of water put onto her upper decks by firefighters.

The importance of fire control is underlined by the number of historic vessels that have been removed from service or will soon, because adapting them to new Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) fire codes proved prohibitively expensive: names like Rotterdam (Holland America's former flagship, to become an attraction in native Holland), Canberra (P&O's former flagship, scrapped), Norway (being scrapped after a fire), and Queen Elizabeth 2 (to become a hotel in Dubai).