The smoke detectors in your house are probably past their prime. It is recommended, by... whoever, that household smoke detectors get replaced every six years. That's a bit overkill if you ask me, but it's a good idea to inspect your smoke alarms at least once a year.
Smoke alarms in private homes typically are battery powered and are either optical or ionization style detectors. Optical detectors are a bit more expensive but are less likely to go off on a false-positive. Ionization alarms are cheaper but tend to go off if you burn the toast.
The smoke alarms in my house were at least ten to fifteen years old. They've been replaced, but I really ought get a few more. It's suggest that you put one in each room that someone sleeps in as well as one per level of the home in a common area.
Smoke alarms are either battery operated and/or hard-wired directly to your house. The best is obviously with both power sources, but unless you're dealing with new construction battery-operated is just fine. The cost of having an electrician come out to wire you up some detectors isn't usually in the budget for most of us.
If you hear a loud, regular chirp sound from your detector - you need to change the battery. It's best to preemptively do that every one to two years.
Since we're on the subject - you should also pick up a Carbon Monoxide detector. Those combined units won't actually detect hazardous levels of CO gas without the presence of smoke.
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