The article is devoted to new directions in diagnosing and forecasting of fires on ships, as in modern conditions the urgency of solving the task of ensuring fire safety is not only not diminished, but increased. Operating experience shows that the likelihood of accidents on marine and river vessels remains quite high. Despite the strict requirements for the reliability of vessel’s and technical facilities, ac- cidents at the facilities, which confirms the, already proven, the conclusion about the impossibility of achieving fire safety is only due to increase reliability. An im- portant place among the security measures is monitoring of sources of danger. All this is organized in accordance with the principle of «localization of the source of danger» based on the obvious position - it is easier and cheaper to prevent an accident than to eliminate or mitigate its consequences. Task condition control hazards typically are addressed and solved in the systems of technical diagnostics. However, implemented in the present methods of technical diagnostics, is designed to determine the actual state of a specific object, provide, first and foremost, control of compliance with the state of the object the objectives of the operation. How- ever, the same experience of struggle for survivability of the TS suggests that the effective control of hazards can and should lead to increased safety and to prevent accidents with catastrophic outcome.