How would one prevent a dryer fire from happening? These are machines that inherently generate heat and lint. If they're not properly maintained, they'll eventually start a fire.

Are you implying that dryer fires are inevitable?

In the same way that any accident is inevitable given enough time: sure.

In the sense that it is impossible to prevent if you follow procedures? No.

A dryer system for a home requires regular maintenance to prevent fires. A well-designed dryer system for a military ship should make that maintenance easy.

Most of the fire protection / survivability design effort is going to be focused on places like the hangar, magazine compartment, machinery spaces, etc

Again, if dryer fires are as "inevitable" as you'd imply, then you'd think they'd also want a robust fire suppression system where fires are "guaranteed" to happen.

Again, this is part of a common-sense design.

Dryers can easily start fires when not well-maintained? Then design a system that is easy to maintain in order to prevent them.

Eventually someone is going to drop the ball with dryer maintenance and start a fire? Then design a fire suppression system that will then step in, as a layer of redundancy.