Final answer:
Fire protection is described as a nonexcludable public good because the fire department must protect all homes to prevent the spread of fire, regardless of payment.
Step-by-step explanation:
The description provided implies that fire protection is a public good characterized as nonexcludable. This means that it is costly or impossible to exclude someone from using this service. Public goods, such as national defense and fire protection, include everyone by default and cannot selectively protect; if one home is protected from a fire, neighboring homes are inadvertently protected as well.
Therefore, even if an individual chooses not to pay the monthly fee for fire protection, the fire department must still protect their home to prevent the spread of the fire to other homes that are covered, illustrating the nonexcludable nature of this public service.
The subject of this question is Economics, specifically the concept of public goods. A public good is a good or service that is nonexcludable and nonrivalrous. Nonexcludable means that it is costly or impossible to exclude someone from using the good, while nonrivalrous means that one person's use of the good does not diminish its availability to others.
In the scenario described, fire protection would be considered a public good because even if someone does not pay the monthly fee, the fire department would still have to protect their house to prevent the fire from spreading to other homes.