Mati was severely hit by a wildfire on 23 July 2018, which killed 103 people and injured 164. The immediate cause of the fire is thought to have been a man burning brushwood in his back yard. Thousands of vehicles, 4,000 homes, and 40,000 pine and olive trees were burned; the fire destroyed Mati and nearby Kokkino Limanaki. About 400 people waded deep into the sea and waited hours to be rescued. Temperatures reached 800°C, fanned by gale-force winds. People blamed government inaction for the high death toll; the government blamed illegal haphazard house-building. In March 2019 a report was produced detailing many mistakes made by the authorities: mismanagement by police and fire services, and a lack of coordination between rescue agencies, had caused "chaos and a collapse of the system... criminal mistakes and omissions".