This paper numerically investigated the characteristics of the fire plume behavior and the ceiling maximum temperature with increasing fire source height, in the longitudinal ventilated tunnel fires. Results show that with the continued increase of the longitudinal velocity, the fire plume gradually tilts to the downstream of the tunnel, causing significantly decrease of the ceiling temperature. With the elevation of the fire source, a circulation area forms at the leeward side of the fire source, the pulling effect of the circulation area and the accumulated smoke layer can protect the fire plume from the effect of ventilation airflow, which can weaken the fire plume inclination. To quantify the influence of the longitudinal flow, the dimensionless velocity v* is adopted and divided into three regions, i.e., v*= 0, 0 < v*≤ 0.19 and v*> 0.19. When 0 < v*≤ 0.19, a velocity influence factor f (v) is added to the original equation to represent the effect of ventilation velocity for increasing fire source locations and the ceiling maximum excess temperature varies as the 2/3 power of the dimensionless heat release rate and linear function of dimensionless ventilation velocity. When v* > 0.19, a concept of virtual fire source is proposed to quantify the effects of the inclined fire plume on the maximum temperature and the ceiling maximum excess temperature varies as the 2/3 power of the dimensionless heat release rate and exponential function of dimensionless ventilation velocity. Besides, the applicability and reliability of the predictive correlations are further verified by comparing to the experimental data of different scales.