Actually the flamethrower has a good 20ish yard range already, so it's not point blank, the problem is the view models for the in use fire don't show it's full range/blind the person using it to what they are doing, have ridiculous amounts of recoil (making it even harder to aim, even though it functions similarly to a sprayer which don't have noticeable push back) and zeds take a second to actually ignite which doesn't give proper feed back and makes it much harder to tell if hit or miss since you don't get an impact sound.
Also
Heat Wave is completely ridiculous atm, with tap spray I held a fp in hard, in a corner till I burned it to death....