We demonstrate the production of cold atomic strontium (Sr) and strontium-containing molecules (SrOH) in a cryogenic buffer-gas beam source via direct heating of strontium oxide (SrO) with 30 mJ laser pulses several milliseconds long. Here, $3.7(2)\times 10^14$ Sr atoms are released, which represents a factor of 7 increase in atomic production per pulse compared to nanosecond-scale ablation laser pulses. A peak atomic density of $1.93(6)×10^12$ atoms/cm3 is achieved, which corresponds to a factor of 2 increase relative to ablation. We further propose extensions of this method to other atomic and molecular species.