Residents of the Athens suburb of Glyfada, who are struggling to heat their homes amid rising energy prices, now have an option – free firewood from the local government.

“We need it…especially in this difficult year,” says Yiannis Dimitrakopoulos, a 75-year-old retiree who is in line for logs.

Dozens of people wait patiently in their cars for their turn.

“We try to get as much wood as possible. We have oil central heating, but you never know,” says Erofili Generali, a teacher in her 50s.

She watches as her husband fills the trunk of their car with wood from the surrounding forests and parks.

Although temperatures in Glyfada remain fairly mild throughout the winter season, residents of this fashionable southern suburb, also known as the Athenian Riviera, still need to heat their homes a bit in winter.

When natural gas prices more than quadrupled in September, many wondered how they could afford it.

Many Greeks are still recovering from the financial fallout from the county’s decades-long economic crisis, and with inflation exceeding 10 percent in the last six months, prices for food and essential goods have skyrocketed.

In Glyfada, which has around 90,000 inhabitants, the majority of households are equipped with central heating that runs on heating oil or, increasingly, on natural gas.

“We feel betrayed by these exorbitant natural gas prices,” says Dimitrakopoulos.

He recalls how the Greek government has heavily subsidized gas for heating in recent years.

A few homes in the area have fireplaces, although these are not used as the primary source of heat.

So the council stepped in to help with free firewood.

“Many trees fell in a snowstorm in January, so we decided not to recycle the wood into industrial fuel as we used to,” explains Annie Kafka, Glyfada’s deputy disaster preparedness officer.

Instead, the wood was chipped so the council could “offer it to households because of the energy crisis.”

The firewood distribution, which started at the beginning of October, usually takes place twice a week.

Around 3,000 households have already benefited from the initiative.

At the same time, demand is exploding. According to Kafka, about 14,000 people have registered on the council’s website.

Households will be notified via SMS when they can come and fill up their trunk. “Vulnerable families naturally have priority,” says Kafka.

In September, the council launched a similar initiative in Zografou, an eastern suburb of Athens.

“The demand from our residents has been impressive,” said Councilor Dimosthenis Bouloukos.

But in the country’s densely populated capital, the initiative was not received with the same enthusiasm, mainly for environmental reasons.

“Wood burning contributes significantly to air pollution, especially in big cities like Athens, which already suffer from nitrogen oxide emissions,” explains Petros Varelidis, head of the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency.

During the Greek financial crisis, which lasted from 2008 to 2018, many of the city’s residents turned to firewood to heat their homes as they could no longer afford heating oil or gas.

As a result, Greece’s main cities found themselves shrouded in suffocating smog.

But while Glyfada residents are aware of the environmental damage caused by burning wood, they argue there is no other way, given the tough economic times ahead.

“It’s a form of recycling, even if it’s harmful,” says Dimitrakopoulos. “This year it’s justifiable.”