Residents of the Athens suburb of Glyfada who are struggling to heat their homes as energy prices soar now have an option — free firewood from the local council.
“We need it ... especially in this difficult year,” said Yiannis Dimitrakopoulos, a 75-year-old pensioner lining up for logs.
Dozens of people wait patiently in their vehicles for their turn.
Photo: AFP
“We try to get as much wood as we can. We have a fuel-oil central heating system, but you never know,” said Erofili Generali, a teacher in her 50s.
She looks on while her husband fills the boot of their car with wood collected from local forests and parks.
Although temperatures in Glyfada remain fairly mild during winter, the inhabitants of the fashionable southern suburb, nicknamed the Athens Riviera, still need to heat their homes.
When natural gas prices more than quadrupled last month, many began to wonder how they would afford it.
Many Greeks are still recovering from the financial impact of the county’s decade-long economic crisis, and with inflation running at more than 10 percent for the past six months, the price of food and essential goods has shot up.
In Glyfada, which has a population of about 90,000, homes are mainly equipped with central heating systems that use fuel-oil or, increasingly, natural gas.
“We feel betrayed about these exorbitant natural gas prices,” Dimitrakopoulos said.
He said that the Greek government has heavily promoted gas for heating in the past few years.
Some homes in the area do have fireplaces, although these are not used as the main source of heating.
So the council has stepped in to help with free firewood.
“Many trees came down in a snowstorm in January, so we decided not to recycle the wood into industrial fuel like we used to,” said Annie Kafka, Glyfada’s deputy civil protection officer.
Instead, the wood was chopped up so the council could “offer it to households because of the energy crisis,” Kafka said.
About 3,000 households have already benefitted from the initiative and demand is exploding, the council said.
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