Abstract: Given the characteristics of highway tunnels such as long structure, closed space and complex internal traffic environment, fire in such tunnels can easily spread and generate hot toxic fire and smoke, thus imposing severe threat to the life safety and properties of trapped personnel. This paper gives an account of the current research efforts in the areas including fire detection, fire development, fire and smoke control and safe evacuation of personnel in case of tunnel fire. Such research includes optimization and upgrading of fire detection system, determination of the key parameters such as demarcation point between far field and near field of tunnel fire smoke, length of the fire smoke backflow layer and thickness of smoke layer, the factors that affect safe evacuation of personnel in case of tunnel fire and the methods for improving safe evacuation efficiency. It is recommended to intensively investigate integrated fire video image detection (VID) technology, upgrade the intelligent ventilation control system, and use the VR training system to enhance the emergency response capability of tunnel management personnel and increase the safe evacuation efficiency during tunnel fire.