install fuelphp 403 error

Question

I have downloaded fuel unzipped it and placed it in a virtual host(virtual hostX) it comes up as fuel.site but not the welcome page it just comes up a directory listing

changelog.md
docs(folder)
oil

if I try and go manually to the public folder I get a 403 error what do I need to configure to get it to run?

I even tried a .htaccess file with

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteBase /fuel/public
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /fuel/public/public/index.php/$1 [L]
</IfModule>

in it as recommended on another site