After millions of Los Angeles County residents received evacuation alerts by mistake, countless Angelenos received more erroneous warnings while the county tries to improve its alert system.

“There is a technical glitch, and we apologize for the confusion and anxiety that any of this has for anybody in the public,” said Bryan LaSota, emergency management coordinator for Los Angeles County’s Office of Emergency Management.

The errant warnings fueled panic and frustration in the nation’s most populous county, where several wildfires still rage out of control. But authorities say the county’s emergency alerts have also saved countless lives, giving residents time to flee before flames engulf their homes.

While authorities cite unspecified technical flaws for this week’s messaging problems, a larger issue remains.

Some residents get emergency alerts on their phones based on their proximity to cell phone towers in those affected areas – not based on where they live. In other words: If your home is at risk of burning down, but you’re at work on the other side of town, you might not get a cell phone alert saying your home is under an evacuation warning.

The two-day messaging debacle started Thursday, shortly after the Kenneth Fire broke out. Emergency officials tried to send an alert only to people in the Calabasas and Agoura Hills areas, LaSota told CNN.

“The first technical glitch is that it went out county-wide, instead of to the affected area,” he said.

So, residents throughout the county of almost 10 million people received an urgent message on their cell phones.

After the error was discovered “We had to cancel that one,” LaSota said.

But the problems continued Friday when residents were startled by pre-dawn alerts.

No one should have received such warnings before dawn Friday, LaSota said.

“Due to an error in the technology … people are receiving them today, even though they were sent yesterday,” he said.

LaSota and other emergency officials said a detailed investigation is underway to try to determine the cause.

Friday evening, Los Angeles County said it was temporarily moving to the state’s emergency notification system.