Due to the complexity of the long-narrow tunnel structure and the frequent occurrence of tunnel fire accidents, tunnel fire safety has attracted extensive attention. Since fire-induced smoke causes a great threat to personnel safety, the related research achievements are summarized and compared to show an overview of the smoke diffusion and control in four typical tunnel structures, i.e. single-hole tunnels, single-branched tunnels, H-shaped tunnels and urban traffic link tunnels (UTLT). For the smoke movement characteristic, the maximum temperature rise, longitudinal temperature distribution and vertical smoke stratification are mainly studied. The smoke control involves longitudinal ventilation, natural ventilation and mechanical smoke extraction. Among them, the smoke backflow length, critical velocity and smoke exhaust efficiency need to be taken into major consideration for the personnel safety evacuation. Due to the multiple branches in UTLT, the smoke diffusion behavior and control strategies are much more complex, which is worthy of further discussion about the local resistance and airflow organization. Besides, fire safety encourages new challenges under the increasing use of new energy carriers, and related work needs to be conducted to investigate the fire and explosion risk in the tunnel. These findings and conclusions in this comprehensive review can support the tunnel fire accident investigation, and provide a reference for the intelligent design of emergency ventilation systems in tunnels