Narrative:

[We were] climbing/accelerating out of 10;000 feet when I saw a flickering red light out of the corner of my eye. The source of the intermittent flickering was the number 2 fuel lever which coincidentally had one loop of the fire detection system already deferred due to a long history of problems. There were no other fire detection alerts or any engine instruments to indicate a problem. Touching the fuel lever caused the rest of the fire detection system to go off. Shortly after silencing the bell all of the alerts went away. I tested the fire detection system successfully and rechecked all of the engine instruments which were normal. We had initiated the engine fire checklist by placing the number 2 throttle in idle but decided to declare an emergency and return to [departure airport] with the engine running in idle. Also; decided not to touch the number 2 fuel lever any more. We had no further abnormal indications of any sort. First officer continued as PF for an uneventful ILS. With fire/rescue equipment standing by we stopped on the runway; shutdown number 2 and had the fire/rescue personnel inspect our airplane. Given an all ok by them we taxied clear and continued to the ramp without incident.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: MD10 Captain experienced engine fire warning so he declared an emergency and returned to departure airport.

Narrative: [We were] climbing/accelerating out of 10;000 feet when I saw a flickering red light out of the corner of my eye. The source of the intermittent flickering was the Number 2 fuel lever which coincidentally had one loop of the fire detection system already deferred due to a long history of problems. There were no other fire detection alerts or any engine instruments to indicate a problem. Touching the fuel lever caused the rest of the fire detection system to go off. Shortly after silencing the bell all of the alerts went away. I tested the fire detection system successfully and rechecked all of the engine instruments which were normal. We had initiated the engine fire checklist by placing the Number 2 throttle in idle but decided to declare an emergency and return to [departure airport] with the engine running in idle. Also; decided not to touch the Number 2 fuel lever any more. We had no further abnormal indications of any sort. First Officer continued as PF for an uneventful ILS. With fire/rescue equipment standing by we stopped on the runway; shutdown Number 2 and had the fire/rescue personnel inspect our airplane. Given an all OK by them we taxied clear and continued to the ramp without incident.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.