Some 600 firefighters were trying to put out the fires, which started Saturday. Many people have burned to death in their cars and on the road after becoming trapped by the flames on the road between Figueiro dos Vinhos and Castanheira de Pera.
Gomes says 54 people were also injured in the fire, five of them seriously, including four firefighters and a minor. Fourteen of the injured were in serious condition, RTP said.
"This is a region that has had fires because of its forests, but we can not remember a tragedy of these proportions", Valdemar Alves, mayor of Pedrogao Grande, told the Associated Press. In the small village of Atalaia Fundeira, a big cloud of smoke billowed from a scrub of land as villagers including 76-year-old Palmira Coelho rushed out with buckets of water and a tractor arrived with a tank of water and hose.
Fire experts are pointing to a series of shortcomings in Portugal's strategy of dealing with wildfires, two days after a forest blaze killed 62 people in central Portugal.
Bodies were found on roadsides after people appeared to abandon their cars and flee raging forest fires.
Some roads were closed as the wildfire spread out of control, destroying several fire engines.
Silva's comments echo those of Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who told reporters at the scene the fires have caused "a human tragedy beyond any in our memory".
Fire and smoke is seen on the IC8 motorway during a forest fire near Pedrogao Grande.
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European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker commended the bravery of the firefighters and said that the EU civil protection mechanism was activated and would provide help.
He said it was thought to have been sparked by a lightning strike. "The magnitude of this is on a completely different scale to what I have seen before".
Spain's prime minister has offered support to Portugal after forest fires have killed at least 43 people in the neighboring country.
The UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has updated its travel advice for travellers to Portugal on account of the massive fire that ravaged central Portugal this past weekend and which affected a number of Britons, two of whom were hospitalised.
French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: "Solidarity with Portugal, hit by bad fires".
Mariano Rajoy has tweeted that he is "overwhelmed by the tragedy at Pedrogao Grande".
Cathelijne Stoof, an environmental science professor at the Netherlands' Wageningen University, said Portugal's wildfire problems stem basically from the gradual depopulation of rural areas in recent decades, leaving fewer people caring for forest areas and the countryside in general. People, bewildered, remains of homes burning uncontrollably, concrete posts exploding over roads.
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