Soaring heating oil prices put struggling Maine families in a bind

In Freeport, Maine, Chris and Cheryl Oliver are making tough choices as they try to make ends meet on roughly $60,000 a year.

“Am I going to get food this week, or am I going to get gas this week?” Cheryl Oliver told CBS News.

Then came another blow. Just as diesel and gas prices have risen considerably since the start of the Iran war, the price of heating oil in Maine has soared from $3.34 per gallon one year ago to $5.97 today, a jump of roughly 79%.

The Olivers qualified for 100 gallons of free heating oil through a local community center, help worth about $700. Unfortunately, it still won’t get them through the winter.

“I was panicking, like, how are we going to fill our tank and how are we going to stay warm?” Cheryl Oliver asked.

Nationwide, more than 4 million households use heating oil as their primary fuel source, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and of those, 82% are concentrated in the Northeast. 

Tony DiMarco, cofounder of the Freeport Wood Bank, a food pantry of sorts for firewood, said the demand right now is “extremely high.” Donations keep it running.

“I don’t think people fully recognize how big of an impact it’s going to have when heating oil costs twice as much as it did last year, and people are already spending as much as they did last year,” DiMarco said. “I just don’t think people fully grasp the severity of the problem.”

The Freeport Wood Bank is one of about 17 similar wood banks across the state. Freeport can supply about 50 families with firewood, but DiMarco says it will run out of its supply by the middle of winter.

This week, DiMarco delivered two free cords of firewood to help the Olivers stretch their heating oil.  It’s a lifeline for a family already struggling. Chris Oliver lost one of his legs to diabetes and later suffered a heart attack.  

“Tony and that place, they’re unbelievable,” an emotional Chris Oliver said. “I don’t know without them if we’d have heat.”