Fireaxe

Fireaxe
Weapon type	Close Combat Weapon
Technical specifications
Rate of fire	0.9s per hit. 18 seconds to kill a Tank

"Yeah, always wanted to be an axe murderer!"

―Ellis

"Axe me a question, I dare you."

―Rochelle

The Fireaxe is a close combat weapon from Left 4 Dead 2.

It is found in the following campaigns:

• Dead Center
• The Passing
• Dark Carnival
• Swamp Fever
• Hard Rain
• No Mercy (Left 4 Dead 2 only)
• Crash Course (Left 4 Dead 2 only)
• Death Toll (Left 4 Dead 2 PC version only)
• Blood Harvest (Left 4 Dead 2 only)
• The Sacrifice (Left 4 Dead 2 only)
• Cold Stream
• The Last Stand (Left 4 Dead 2 version)

Official Description

Great for clearing out crowds of infected, this handy lumberjack-approved melee weapon will have you stacking up the zombies like cordwood.

Melee Mechanics

Melee weapons replace Pistols in the secondary weapon slot. Unlike Pistols, close combat weapons never need to be reloaded and cannot run out of ammo (excluding the Chainsaw). They have two main drawbacks: a limited reach and (with a few exceptions) relatively long cooldown periods. Close combat weapons cause minimal friendly fire damage to the Survivors, even on Advanced and Expert difficulty levels (the Chainsaw is an exception).

These weapons are extremely effective. All melee weapons, on all difficulties, kill Common Infected and most Special Infected in one hit, aside from the Charger (which takes two—but see point below), the Witch (which takes four), and the Tank (which takes twenty, excluding the Chainsaw). Due to their death effects, it is generally advised to melee neither the Boomer (unless there is no choice) nor the Spitter (unless it is possible to move away immediately from the resulting acid splash).

The melee weapons appear to do more damage if an Infected's head or upper body is targeted. With the correct timing it is possible to kill a Charger with one hit while it is charging, allowing a Survivor to "level" a charge without first dealing damage to the Charger and to gain the achievement "Level a Charge".

The Fireaxe is classified as a sharp weapon. As such, hits from this weapon will sever limbs and splatter blood, as well as cutting The Smoker's tongue.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Wide swing.
• Very high spawn rate.
• Extremely consistent hit registration.
• Predictable attack pattern.
• Can be used to cut a Smoker's tongue.

Cons

• Slow swing rate.
• Attacks may obstruct the user's vision.
• Not recommended for killing Boomers due to bile showering the attacker and any nearby Survivors.

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

	CONFEDERACY OF CRUNCHES	(30G)
	Finish a campaign using only melee weapons.

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	HEAD HONCHO	(15G)
	Decapitate 200 Infected with a melee weapon.

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	TANK BURGER	(30G)
	Kill a Tank with melee weapons.

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	BEAT THE RUSH	(15G)
	In a Survival round, get a medal only using melee weapons.

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	CLUB DEAD	(15G)
	Use every melee weapon to kill Common Infected.

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	LEVEL A CHARGE	(15G)
	Kill a Charger with a melee weapon while they are charging.

PC exclusive

	LICKETY-SPLIT
	With a sharp melee weapon, cut a Smoker's tongue before he ensnares you.

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	NEW HAIRCUT
	Kill a Witch using only a sharp melee weapon, without anyone getting incapacitated or killed.

Notes

Coach holding Fireaxe in "Dead Center"

• The Fireaxe's design is based on a firefighter's axe and usually used to slash through certain obstacles such as wooden gates. It's normally found lying on the floor or on a wooden crate; in the case of Swamp Fever, a usable axe may sometimes be found stuck in a tree, suggesting that a previous unknown Survivor had used it as an improvised wood-cutting axe.
• A Fireaxe can be found in Whitaker's shop in The Streets in Dead Center.
• It was originally planned that the player could decapitate a Witch by sneaking up on her and swinging the Fireaxe at her head, but this capability was subsequently scrapped for balancing reasons.
• In an early gameplay video, the Fireaxe had an animation in which the Survivor brings it over an Infected's head and slices downward, chopping it in half. This was later abandoned.
  • Vertical slash animations were never included for melee weapons aside from the Pitchfork.
• In the beta version, Fireaxes could be found in The Parish campaign (it still can be found during Developer Commentary).
  • Following the September 24, 2020 update, the Fireaxe can now also be found in Death Toll. This is the case only for the PC version, however.
• There is a texture of the Team Fortress 2 Fire Axe in the game files, located in the materials/models/weapons/melee/fireaxe folder. A small difference is that it only has a texture and in its VMT file, it does not have the toon-shading, lightwarps, etc.

Bugs

• On the Xbox 360 version, when attacking with the Fireaxe as one of the Left 4 Dead 2 survivors, Coach's grunt noise is sometimes played.
  • As of the Last Stand update, this has been fixed on the PC version; the Left 4 Dead 2 Survivors start using their own grunt(s) when swinging the Fireaxe.

• If the player increased the weapon's FOV (cl_viewmodelfovsurvivor) to higher than 60 (default is 51) they could see the Survivor's left arm on the screen which partially obstructed their view. This was especially noticeable if the player used custom Survivor models that have larger arms.
  • Following the Last Stand update, this issue has also been fixed.