At such a close range where you can dodge the fireball and still punish them in recovery, it would be hard to react to anything. I also think its unsafe to do fireballs at that range since you can easily jump over them so most good players would just stop throwing them at that range anyway.

If you were to get it to work though, it would have to be because you 'know' this opponent that well and the lil quirks he has to be able to pull it off. You can't do it reactionary imo during a match. Try setting your dummy to ALL BLOCK and record it throwing a fireball...then see if the distance you do it in can tag the dummy or not.

Sometimes its best to not try to escape every situation, but deal with it. Its okay if you block the fireball or just neutral jump it every now and then trying to inch in to that perfect sweet spot where jumping in is a good idea to make them stop tossing fireballs.