Ion cyclotron emission (ICE) is the only collective radiative instability, driven by confined fusion-born alpha-particles, observed from deuterium–tritium (DT) plasmas in both JET and TFTR. Using first principles particle-in-cell simulations of the magnetoacoustic cyclotron instability (MCI), we elucidate some of the fully kinetic nonlinear processes that may underlie observations of ICE from fusion products in these large tokamaks. We find that the MCI is intrinsically self-limiting on very fast timescales, which may help explain the observed correlation between linear theory and observed ICE intensity. The simulations elaborate the nature of the excited electric and magnetic fluctuations, from first principles, confirming the dominant role of fast Alfvénic and electrostatic components which is assumed ab initio in analytical treatments.