By BILL KETTLER

CENTRAL POINT -- Frenchwomen who want to be firefighters have to work extra hard to earn men's respect, says a student doing an internship with the Oregon Department of Forestry.

"When you make a mistake, people don't forgive you if you're a woman," said Lucie Vassoile, of Lyon. "If a man does the same mistake, people would forgive him. You have to fight against this all the time."

The 20-year-old volunteer firefighter is spending two months with state forestry officials and local firefighters to study American forest management and fire protection techniques. She said there are few similarities between south-central France and the Rogue Valley.

"Everything is different," she said. "Not the same vegetation, not the same cars, not the same cities, not the same food.

"We don't use wood for building," she said. "We use reinforced concrete."

Vassoile said houses in France are built several stories high and close together to conserve space. "I was surprised to see how low your houses are."

Vassoile is majoring in environmental studies at the Institut Universitaire de Technologie in Marseille. She is the first student from her school to arrange an internship in the United States.

A friend who had visited the U.S. gave her a list of organizations to contact about internships, including the Oregon Department of Forestry.

"He said, `Why don't you go to America?' I said, `Why not?"'

Vassoile said Southern Oregon's open spaces and dense forests differ dramatically from French woodlands, which are thinned frequently and feel more open than forests here.

"When you're in a (French) forest, you can see very far," she said. "Here you can't see more than two meters sometimes."

Vassoile said France's relatively small forest tracts are easier to manage intensively than the vast forests of the Western United States. "Here (the forest) is just so big you can't treat the whole area."

During her stay, Vassoile has ridden along with local fire departments and spent days in the field with state foresters on timber harvest projects. She will work with forestry officials compiling data about fires caused by faulty irrigation pumps, to determine what measures might reduce the number of those fires.

Before she returns to France in early June, Vassoile will attend an international arson investigators conference in Portland and a fire equipment show in Eugene.

State forestry officials have learned a lot from Vassoile during her stay, said dispatcher Margueritte Root.

"It's been a way to bring someone else's world to us," said Root. "It's exciting to hear about another part of our world and how things happen there."

Vassoile's fluent English has helped her pick up the specialized language of foresters and firefighters here. She uses Internet e-mail to stay in touch with family members in France and fellow students doing internships.