Sorry. I didn't see Dave's post before I submitted mine.

Hi Doug. Actually, the final report on the Star Princess fire was completed last October and it did conclude that the likely cause of the fire was a discarded cigarette butt that ignited combustible materials on the balcony. Here's a link to the synopsis:

http://www.maib.gov.uk/cms_resources/Star%20Princess_Synopsis.pdf

There were a lot of people who, at the time of the fire, believed a cigarette could not possibly have caused all that damage. But the investigators found no evidence of any other cause.

The report shows it was not an easy fire to fight and it took an hour and a half to put it out. Not being an expert on these things, my guess is it was a very tense situation aboard the ship and if the fire would have taken much longer to get under control the captain probably would have had to begin abandoning ship.

By the way, on my last cruise on the Crown Princess I noticed sprinkler heads on each balcony. Tom.